


The Roads We Take

by RobinsGirlWonder



Series: The Sacrifice of Fate [3]
Category: Smallville, Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Crossover, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:54:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsGirlWonder/pseuds/RobinsGirlWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At last, Chloe is reunited with her family in Metropolis, and the world seems on edge as Sam topples over the razor's edge and Dean makes a deal he can't go back on. But, when Fate pulls them all together once more to cross paths with one of hell's most honored prisoners, just how will the cards fall? Fate's mysteries deepen, the countdown begins, and Chloe finds herself torn between the man she knows she'll lose, and the one she knows she can't have. Set through late season 2 of Supernatural (after Born Under A Bad Sign) through season 3, and season 10 of Smallville and beyond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Answers Before Questions

**424:12:52.49**

_I've been having these feelings._

_**With the Bell and Wheel and Jar** _

_**Demons Three, Near or Far** _

_Rage. Hate. And I can't stop it. Day by day, it gets worse._

_I don't want to hurt anyone else. I don't want to hurt you._

_**In The Pit of Hell they Dwell** _

_**All loyal generals** _

_It didn't have to be this way. Or maybe it did._

_My daddy shot your daddy in the head..._

_You're not Sam._

_**And there he barters** _

_**And here he martyrs** _

_You can't hurt me. Not without hurting your little brother. See, I think you're gonna die, Dean. You and every other hunter I can find. One look as Sam's dewey, sensitive eyes? They'll let me right in their door._

_Spiritus in mundus un glorum suarum umitite palatum iram domine ..._

_It's a binding link! It's like a lock! He's locked himself inside Sam's body!_

_**The Faust, The Faust! He shall cry** _

_**And rise with Blood upon the sky** _

_Hell is like, um, Well, it's like hell. Even for demons. It's a prison, made of bone and flesh and blood and fear; And you sent me back there._

_Meg._

_Whatever I do to you, it's nothing compared to what you'll do to yourself, is it? I can see it in your eyes, Dean. You're worthless. You couldn't save your Dad, and deep down you know that you can't save your_

_brother. They'd have been better off without you._

_**And there she cries** _

_**And there she dies** _

_I was awake for some of it, Dean. I watched myself kill Wandell with my own two hands; I saw the light go out in his eyes._

_Sam, when Dad told me that I might have to kill you, it was only if I couldn't save you. Now, if it's the last thing I do I'm going to save you._

_**Gone! Gone! - The Form of Jar** _

_These things create chaos and mischief as easy as breathing, and it's got you so turned around and at each other's throats, you can't even think straight._

_**Toll! Toll! - The Form of Bell** _

_I'm looking for the best and brightest of your generation._

_**Spin! Spin! - The Form of Wheel** _

_SAM!_

_**Nabu, Nabu! The throng intones** _

_**And she is trapped and alone** _

"Chloe."

**424:10:32.23**

Chloe's eyes opened; her hand moved on instinct, reaching out for some invisible assailant as her heart pounded painfully, nauseatingly in her chest. Her breath came in sharp, staccato bursts. In the pitch black of the underground facility run by the Suicide Squad, her eyes couldn't focus. They found nothing in front of her but more shadows that threatened to swallow her. A staggered, choked gasp for air, sharp and atonal, echoed and made her jump again until she realized that through the roaring in her ears, that was  _her own voice_.

Reaching back behind her, her slender fingers fumbled along the smooth surface of her nightstand before they desperately gripped the base of her desk lamp.

Light flared like a beacon in the small room, illuminating the sheen of sweat running down the blonde's face in all too noticeable beads. At once, her shoulders shook as tension and momentary suspense, fear of the unknown, was chased away along with the rest of the demons. Shadows gave way to simple furniture that held absolutely no emotional attachment to her, but comforted her nonetheless.

Chloe's breath kept tumbling out of her, one beat after the other, as she rode through writhing, wordless fear that had followed her from her dreams. In just the few seconds between the darkness and the light, the details of her dream had completely abandoned her, leaving only the trepidation and terror that she needed to work through.

Swinging her legs over, she slid out of bed and forced herself to her feet. Padding over to the small spartan bathroom in her equally spartan quarters, Chloe immediately flipped on the faucet, leaning over the sink with her hands gripping the white porcelain tightly. Before her fingers could lock into that position out of stiffness and distress, she forced them under the stream, washing her face free of the sweat and grime. Images flashed behind her closed lids of the Winchesters, but they didn't make any sense.

Of  _course_  her nightmares were about them. That's  _always_  who occupied her nightmares. She hadn't spoken to Dean in five days, which was not unusual in itself, but both of them had known something was wrong with Sam. She'd been so focused on this truce - as shaky as it was - with Flagg, she hadn't been able to reach the brothers. Their phones still rang and went to voicemail, though, so that was something. She had already told herself twice not to use her considerable skills to track them down, but her patience was wearing thin. If she didn't hear anything by tomorrow, she would find them. She couldn't justify waiting.

As she stood upright once more, hands sweeping over her cheekbones to wipe water away, her eyes scanned the reflection in the mirror. Haunted. Cold.

Every day, less and less remained of the Chloe Sullivan who had started this journey.

No curls, no bounce in her step, and no twinkle in her eyes. Just the military precision of the Amazon people, the drive of Ted Grant's boxing liturgies, and the vast compendium of knowledge, mundane, arcane, and scientific, that made Chloe such a valuable commodity. And that's what she was, she knew that. The only reason Flagg had conceded to her, given her the austere quarters she had, was because he found a value in her. She'd taken down every one of his highly trained Suicide Squad with non-lethal shots without blinking an eye, Dean's training fresh in her mind. She'd hacked into his system and permanently wrested control of his missile system from him, and had seamless control over Solomon Grundy, thanks to Zatanna.

Maybe she should send Zatanna to check on the Winchesters... she'd been the key of Fate's cryptic messages about Grundy - at least, Chloe thought so - and had used the Gold K concoction to fashion a spell binding Grundy to the elemental soup of that swamp. As long as Grundy wore that Gold K around his neck, Chloe could influence him however she needed to.

Her face crumbled in the mirror before blurring entirely, and Chloe's shoulders shook as emotion overtook her. This was what she was now. She took advantage of things that went bump in the night. She was torn between two friends who needed to help and the heroes of the world she's given her  _actual_  life to protect, with no way to escape the chasm below the razor wire she was walking. With every decision she made, Chloe felt like she had less and less to hold onto, to remind her why she was doing this, and that ultimately, she was making the best decision.  _At what point do your ends stop justifying your means, Chloe?_ She asked herself in the reflection. The dark circles under her eyes gave her a solid indication that her conscience had stopped being clear somewhere between meeting Dean and roping him into a plan that could've gotten him killed, putting his brother in danger.

"You're not God, you know."

The sharp pain in her temple coincided with the voice of someone she  _knew_  to be dead as of that morning and she whirled, facing her bed. The signs of Fate's manipulations had grown less subtle over the last few days, as if to ensure she'd press on, doggedly pursuing the impossible goal of saving  _everyone_.

That didn't change the fact that Carter Hall was sitting casually at the edge of her bed, in jeans and his red sweater, brown leather jacket fitting him like a second skin. He looked alive, scruff and all, with those sharp blue eyes staring her down as if he'd seen right through her. But, she knew it wasn't him.

He'd died the night before.  _Icarus has flown too high_... Fate's words in the middle of Slaughter Swamp echoed even as she felt a momentary wash of hope, of relief at the sight of someone familiar.

But, then he smiled. And Chloe knew. The warmth was dashed against icy defensive walls in an instant, and Chloe's body stiffened in response. "You're not Carter." She said evenly, swallowing and glancing up at the ceiling so she could avoid that gaze, steeling herself for a conversation with a doppelganger. "And I'm getting tired of more questions with no answers in sight, Nabu. You won't even tell me where they've taken the rest of the team. I'm not asking for a walkthrough, but the dungeon  _map_  would be nice."

He stood, hands tucked in his pockets as he walked closer to her, a towering sight like always. There had been the early days, when they'd first met the Justice Society, that Chloe had spent quiet patrols getting to know the Hawkman - much as he ever let anyone in. It was mostly listening to him and Oliver... Chloe swallowed, brushing thoughts of the archer away, pushing them deeper, burying them best she could. "I'm what you need right now." Carter smiled a little more, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes tugged a little more at her memory. "Chloe, everyone has difficult decisions to make, and sometimes, the decisions we choose aren't the pretty ones. I shed blood as Hawkman. That never stopped you from seeing me as a hero."

She sighed, frustration and worry coloring the noise as she slipped around him, walking to her dresser. No more sleep this evening, it seemed. If Fate wouldn't let her sleep peacefully, then she wouldn't sleep at all. If she was even awake... The fact that he was there was yet another reminder to Chloe that since she'd met up with Dean in the swamp, the waking world and the dreaming world had a tendency to run together. "Okay, you need to  _stop_. Like I said, you are not Carter, please stop playing with his memory and just be  _honest_  with me, Nabu." She turned to face him as she pulled her black blouse with a flourish. "And you using Carter is a  _low_  blow, he was Kent Nelson's _friend_." The venom in her voice didn't so much as make him flinch, but it did continue to feed her fire. "And Carter might've used a little more force than necessary, but that is not even in the same cosmic ballpark as me controlling a zombie. Grundy is more than just a monster!" Chloe's brow knit in concern, prostration. "You cannot expect me to take away someone's agency and be okay with that. This isn't what heroes  _do_ , Nabu."

"There are no easy answers to the questions you have, Chloe, but right now, you need to put aside your code, and follow the path in front of you." Carter's voice lowered into the growl she'd long since gotten used to as Hawkman. It was nostalgic, painful, and  _not_  going to work on her.

"I am  _willing_  to take his journey, but I need to know more." Chloe put the shirt laced between her fingers down onto the dresser. "I cannot put my ethics aside for this. This isn't just trying to gauge harm, you are  _blurring the lines_  between hero and villain and I'm afraid I won't be able to see it anymore." The anger gave way to the darker fears she tried to keep at bay. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was Fate's touch, but she couldn't keep them buried. "I am losing myself in this funhouse, and I'm starting to lose track of where the mirrors end and I begin." And there it was. She knew that was what she was afraid of, and the demure expression on Carter's face told her Fate knew it, too. And he didn't seem to care.

She knew she had to sacrifice her sanity once day. She'd just hoped she wouldn't become one of the bad guys first.

"Chloe, there's more going on and it will all be explained to you," Carter held up a hand. "When you need to know."

"And I am telling you that I need to know  _now_!" Chloe pled, only for another sharp pain to strike her temple with the force of a railroad spike. She buckled, the world around her forgotten as the deep spasm spread right from her temple to her forehead. She reached blindly for support, her hands shakily finding the dresser, but her knees couldn't take her weight. Chloe fell to the ground in a ungainly mess, still gripping at the dresser as the throbbing threatened to swell over everything.

"You're not ready to know all of it, Chloe." Carter... she could still hear him, could feel his hand on her back, stroking, coaxing, even as she clutched at the corner of the dresser, her forehead resting there for support while her eyes went wide, pupils blown as she tried to work through the pain. There was no golden light of Fate to encompass her vision, to free her here. This was something else, a darker conviction from the god-like creature who'd placed a seed of himself deep in her psyche. "You must follow the Path."

She felt something wet across her lips. A quick flick of her tongue told her everything: she tasted iron. Blood. "Fate..." She gasped as another throb sent her reeling, unable to breathe. "What've you done to me?"

_**What is necessary, Chloe Sullivan. You have Chosen This Fate.** _

_**You must prepare for what is ahead.** _

The world spun around her. The dresser became the buoy by which she held onto as her vision swam like she was in choppy Atlantic seas. Vague thoughts of Diana's arms wrapped around her as she pulled Chloe free from the fishing net Epione and Clio had accidentally caught her in at sea drifted by. Her vision blurred once more, dissolving into black as she aimlessly tried to cling to consciousness.

_At first, the words were syllables of a foreign tongue that had no meaning. And then, all at once, she understood._

" _Give her room to breathe, stand back..."_

_She coughed, water spewing forth over her lips in an unpleasant way, salt burning her nostrils, throat, tongue and lips. The world was no longer rocking. The cyanide antidote had worked. She was alive... somehow._

_Her eyes focused on a figure above her. Black hair in long waves spilled over the shoulders of a very tanned, athletic woman, looming over her. She could feel fingers against her cheek, as if coaxing her gently to wake. "You are safe, sister... But you must breathe. If you swallow more of the ocean, you will be ill."_

_She felt herself being pulled up, still coughing up saline, still disoriented, and all she could focus on was the sound of the gulls._

" _Do you know your name?"_

_The coughs finally subsided. She panted, the pristine beach finally setting in as her sense drank in the location. "My name... is Chloe Sullivan." She muttered, only for the honest realization to fall over her. Her voice broke, and she whispered like a child. "And I'm dead..."_

"Miss Sullivan?" The voice sounded miles away, and coincided with a powerfully nauseated lurch of her stomach that brought her back to the present. Chloe's eyes finally focused again, just in time for her to grapple for the small waste bin on the other side of the dresser. She heard someone call her name again, but it was completely ignored as she tossed her very unceremonious cookies and tried to orient herself once more.

When she finally managed to sit up and force herself back to her feet (the dresser was a lifesaver), the room was as empty as her stomach, no Carter in sight. Her head was now just a dull ache, not the throbbing spasms of the last... was it minutes? Hours?

Chloe looked over at her clock on the nightstand, the early morning glaring at her in red.

Hours, then.

She heard someone tinkering with her door lock, and after forcing bile and saliva back down with a thick shallow, she forced her voice to cooperate, sounding steady as a rock, even though she was still shaking. "I heard you the first time. Just getting dressed, gimme a minute."

"Oh, so you're not dead, that's good."  _Flagg._

Chloe knew he wouldn't have come to bother her unless it was important. Their initial conversations about mutual goals had left them both with a desire for their own spaces. It was a business arrangement, and she was glad for it. She didn't want friends, attachments...

Dean's face flickered before her eyes as she made it to the sink and quickly filled a cup of water, washing her mouth free of the acidic taste. Her eyes glanced up for a moment, intent on returning back to the faucet, but the flash of rust on her skin made her double-take. Dried blood crusted all along her upper lip.

Fate's touch had once saved her. Now, it seemed to be taking more away. Darkness and pain had begun to take place of light and restoration.

Before the real concern could set in, Chloe washed her face again and quickly dressed, finding that shirt on the floor near her bed. After another moment to compose herself, to put on the persona that Watchtower had crafted, honed by the Amazon blade and set into place by an uppercut, she strode to her door and opened it, prepared with a quip.

Of course, that died on her lips when he beat her to the punch. Three words. Three words that put her thoughts of Fate, of Dean and Sam, of  _everything_ , aside.

"We found them."

**422:01:45.01**

_There is... a house... in New Orleans... They call the Rising Sun..._

_She's mine, she's mine, she's mine..._

_You're not hallucinating, Oliver, and you're not insane. Trust me._

_**One, two, blood taboo** _

_**Inscribed upon the purest jewel** _

_And it's been... the ruin... of many a poor boy... and God... I know... I'm one..._

_We weren't cruising for chicks when we ran into you, sister. We were already out here. Hunting._

_Hunting for what?_

_Ghosts._

_I guess that's the true test of believing in someone - knowing that their lies are there to protect you. It's not really trust if you ask someone to explain themselves._

_**Three, four, ichor pour** _

_**Earth's Child now a whore** _

_My mother was a trader... She sewed my new blue jeans..._

_I'm sorry, Molly. 15 years ago, you and your husband hit Jonah Greeley with your car. David survived._

_Molly, you don't belong here. Haven't you suffered long enough? It's time. It's time to go._

_You think she's really going to a better place?_

_I hope so._

_I guess we'll never know. Not until we take the plunge ourselves, huh?_

_**Five, six, The River Styx** _

_**The Righteous Man to be transfixed** _

_My father was a gambling man... down in New Orleans..._

_Why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? What about us? Mom's not supposed to live? Sammy's not supposed to get married? Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad?_

_Ava._

_You've been gone for five months. My brother and I have been looking for you everywhere._

_You should have more faith in your friends, Clark. I came here to help you. Wherever the hell this is._

_**And dance on bodies all devoid** _

_**As Omega unites, all souls destroyed** _

_Oh, mother... tell your children... not to do what I have done_

_I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna take you care of you. I've got you._

_Darkseid's Apokolips. Evil in its purest form - the heart of human nature, obscured over time as something to be cast away rather than embraced. Hades, Kali - even the word "Lucifer" is an old Latin phrase meaning "morning star," "bringer of light."_

_But before the end of days, his rapture will be the only salvation._

_Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up—here. I win. So, I win._

_You're wrong._

_See you in five years, Dean._

_Spend your lives in sin and misery... in the House of the Rising Sun._

_**You cannot save them all, Chloe Sullivan. You have chosen your Fate.** _

**421:23:03.57**

Chloe's eyes shot open as she jostled awake, a momentary flash of gold in the dark. Where the hell was she? For a long, mortifying moment, Chloe's mind was still back there, in a murky place of thunderstorms and no rain, of white suits and the darkness approaching.

Oliver stirred beside her, pulling her closer into his arms, nuzzling his face into her neck before settling once more.

Chloe relaxed into the warm contact she'd been craving for months now. She was safe. In Watchtower. She was still wrapped up in sheets and Oliver's arms on the floor. She had saved them, just like Fate had promised her. Swallowing, she laid back against Oliver and tried to even out her breathing. It was almost impossible to believe that just yesterday, she'd been hacking through government systems in a desperate attempt to save the lives of everyone she'd come to think of as her family. But, they'd done it. Flagg's team had performed quite admirably.

So why did Dean's face flicker past and set her on edge all over again? There was no pain with the dream, but she'd seen too much to process. She could only recall bits and pieces, images without sound, words with no real meaning. And an ice cold weight of a terror unspoken, something dark, that had touched her in ways that frightened her. It was taunting her, just out of reach.

But, it was loss. Loss ate at her, an empty maw in her chest while she stared at the room ahead of her. Sam's face flickered past, stunned and frozen, and she blinked, shuddering as that fear washed over her again. Why couldn't she remember the dream? What was Fate trying to tell her?

Chloe shifted in the makeshift bed, and Oliver did the same, settling on his back, completely out. He was exhausted, in more than one way, but at least he was safe. She rolled over to face him in the darkness, her fingers caressing his jawline as she drank in how relaxed he finally seemed. Her worries melted as she let the world around her fade away. Oliver had a tendency to do that for her. When she was with him, there were no labels, there were no expectations, it just...  _was._  Months of searching and running, months of wondering if the next day would mean her last, all for the hopes of saving him and her family... And he was here.

Chloe sighed, resting her head on his chest, hearing the gentle  _thump-thump_  of his heartbeat in her ear. Her arms slipped around his waist a bit, hugging him best she could as she let herself be swallowed in warmth and comfort. Her eyes drifted closed, calm finally sweeping over her as she heard his breathing, and thought of how they'd spent the evening wrapped in each other's arms, not speaking, just sensing. She'd needed it. An experience completely physical and at the same time, emotional.

" _You plan on sticking around this time?"_

_She tried to ignore the way her heart screamed at the absolute unfairness of what Fate was doing to her. "Yeah."_

And just like that, the house of cards was swept over.

Chloe pulled away, her sad eyes drawn to that serene face as he slept again. This wasn't fair. This wasn't comfort.  _This_  was the lie.

_**Would you sacrifice your sanity to save the Archer?** _

_**You will lose Oliver.** _

Chloe slipped out of the sheets and stood, grabbing one of the blankets they'd since kicked off, wrapping it around her body with its nicks and scars like anyone else's. Fate's words followed her even when she earnestly tried to forget them. This life she had right now was a lie and she knew it. Fate had shown her so much leading up to the rescue, and then stopped focusing on Oliver, instead choosing to give her visions and words she couldn't decipher or remember.

As Chloe made her way up the stairs to her second floor so she could watch the skyline through the ocular window, she found her thoughts drifting to Kent Nelson in his last days. Trapped in his own mind, like her mother, whispered ramblings interspersed with profound knowledge, useful only when Nabu took control.

And that was exactly where she was headed.

Taking a seat in one of her comfortable chairs, she curled up and watched as a news helicopter crossed her line of sight. The city was dangerous. Metropolis was no friend to its heroes, not right now. Not with Oliver wanted and Carter's death covered up. The Darkness... it was spreading across the city, faster and faster.

They were running out of time.

_**The Path is dangerous.** _

She sighed, shaking away thoughts of the words she  _could_ remember. Fate was of absolutely no help in the middle of the night. Especially when her dreams didn't seem to be focused on Oliver or the oncoming Darkness, but rather Dean and Sam. Something headed their way that she didn't understand and couldn't recall.

She turned her gaze from the window, her eyes instead falling to one of her desks. Desks were all over this place, and she still knew where every single item was kept. So, she was quite aware that one of her burn phones was in the second drawer from the bottom on the left-hand side of that desk.

After a moment's consideration, she stood and made her way over, grabbing the phone from the drawer - of course it hadn't been moved - and dialing a number she'd since committed to memory. With each ring on the other end, Chloe sank down into the desk chair beside her as her heart started to pound. Just a few days ago, she'd been ready to run after Dean, to find out if he and Sam were all right, but then plans had been derailed, she'd...

"'Lo?"

Chloe never answered, even if Dean certainly sounded alive and awake. She hung up and held the phone firmly in both her hands, tucking them into the covers on her lap, as if a child caught stealing candy.

She couldn't keep doing this. She had one foot in Hunting and one foot in Watchtower.

One hand on Oliver, and one hand straying closer to...

Chloe glanced up at the window, watching another helicopter pass by.

She was starting to understand why Fate could drive one to insanity. Impossible choices, and someone would get hurt.

One day, Chloe would lose someone. Fate told her it was Oliver...

So why did she feel like she was already losing the Winchesters?

_**The Path is Dangerous.** _

_**Chosen Girl, you must protect them at all costs.** _

_**You have Chosen your Fate, Chloe Sullivan. And theirs.** _


	2. Lighthouse On the Cape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to the nature of the fic, I'm posting timeline check-ins so you know when the fic is taking place.   
> Timeline: Set during Supernatural (2x18) Hollywood Babylon, and Smallville (10x13) Beacon.

**421:15:45.31**

Chloe's feet had pounded pavement the moment shots were fired downtown, shattering the peace she'd barely found in Oliver's arms that evening. Banter had temporarily pushed away her fears of the night before, especially when banter meant keeping Oliver from donning a hoodie to play Ninja Arrow when he was wanted by the government for charges that even Chloe couldn't erase. Trumped up as they might have been, her clearance, her technological prowess - and Flagg's resources - only went so far.

It had been a blow to her pride to admit that there was too much data for even Chloe Sullivan - who had erased  _herself_  - to find and remove.

All of that had vanished once morning came, and after the flick of her wrist and the click of her mouse, sniper shots had knocked Martha Kent off of her feet and sent both Arrow and Watchtower scrambling. If asked, she wouldn't have an iota of guilt over the fact that plan and machinations for the coming Darkness were left at the door. She'd dressed in seconds, grabbing jewelry she had on hand from the night before and clasping her necklace around her neck so she wouldn't lose track of it. Oliver had tried to follow her out the door, unsurprisingly. She could understand why he wanted to be there, but both of them knew what he was trying to ignore. It was too dangerous for Oliver Queen to be seen  _anywhere_.

Eventually, she had convinced him to remain in the Watchtower and sped to Met Gen. Chloe knew she could be a force of nature when she wanted to be, and she had every intention of being exactly that way in this instance.

The moment she'd seen the hospital, the thoughts of blowing through the hallways like a tornado turned to ice in her stomach. There had been no word on Mrs. Kent's condition as she was rushed off, and uncertainty flooded in at the sight of ambulances and paramedics all around. All of her discipline, her big talk and big walk about staying cool under pressure was, for some reason, buckling beneath the surface. She didn't know if Mrs. Kent would be inside and recovering... or if Clark was going to be inside, decimated.

Taking a deep breath, letting the sickening jitters leave with the warm air, Chloe steeled herself and strode into Met Gen's Emergency Room. With each click of her heels, the world around her was closing in, the sounds of a couple of children, miserable and waiting treatment, and the chatter of adults fading. What if Mrs. Kent was gone? What would she do? She hadn't even seen her in a year, she'd been tracking her as the Red Queen. Chloe had gotten so focused on living life behind the screen that she had really let her connections to others dull. It wasn't until she was forced to detach, make new friends, allies, mentors, that she realized how far she'd distanced herself. In some ways, she was even worse now that she was back in Metropolis. Closed off to what was closest to her heart, even with the man she wanted to be honest with. No one knew about the Darkness, the promises she'd made to Fate.

Chloe turned the corner, catching sight of guards waiting outside of the hospital room she instinctually knew as Martha Kent's. Her breath caught in her throat, and a moment stretched for hours as she set her hand on the doorframe and turned to look inside.

She almost cried with relief.

Clark was speaking with his mother. She was up, their conversation wasn't a pleasant one, but she seemed fine. Chloe clutched at the door frame, slowly letting out her breath as she heard Clark's obviously worried tone.

"But, I'm not gonna let you go on a suicide mission for me." Chloe's heart ached for him, but she kept silent even as her brow furrowed, her lips pursed in her uniquely worried expression. "The person who did this to you is still out there. I'm gonna find them." She couldn't blame him for being angry, defensive, concerned. It was his own mother, and she never thought twice about the sacrifices she was willing to make. Chloe could understand that. She'd been doing it her entire life, and now, she especially knew the cost of her family's safety. "I'm not ready to say goodbye to you, too."

Chloe's chest tightened and her heart twisted in sympathy, but there was nothing she could do to soothe his concerns. A gust of air signalled his departure, and Chloe was left loss, concern, sympathy, and a woman infinitely stronger than the little-nerd-that-could would ever be.

"He's just worried about you, Mrs. Kent. We all are." Chloe's voice was smoother, more empathetic and less worried than she'd felt just moments before. She settled her hands in front of her as the older woman turned to face her, and Chloe was stuck by the subtlety of Martha Kent's strength. No one had ever matched that in Chloe's experience, and she didn't think anyone else would. She  _completely_  understood Clark's reluctance towards Martha's very vocal support of the world's heroes. Chloe swallowed at Martha's gentle smile, a grace that made her want to take her problems away for her. With a tilt of her blonde head, reminiscent of the little girl who used to spend her days at the Kent Farm helping Martha make the occasional pie, Chloe moved forward. "Oliver really wanted to come, too, but I was afraid he'd get recognized." Before she realized it, her arms were around her in an embrace, barely keeping her emotions in check. Martha was so important to everyone she'd touched, and Chloe was just a small part of that influence. So, naturally, the moment Martha winced, Chloe pulled back and instantly regretted the hug. "Sorry." Martha just smiled, taking everything in stride. Chloe knew she needed to put that mask on that she had grown accustomed to, the same mask Dean and Sam had seen almost the entire time they were fighting a murderous  _ghost_ , for God's sake. She glanced down at the bandaged wound on Martha's shoulder and clicked her tongue. "Y'know, who would've thought there'd be a day when heroes need  _this_  much protection." An empty chuckle escaped her lips, but Martha could see right through it. She could see the worry. It was like she knew that Chloe's conflict had been more than just this most recent brush with crisis. Chloe's curls were there, so was the quirky smile, but it was an act. And Martha could see it. Thankfully, she didn't call her on it.

"This is nothing new." Chloe's smile faded at Martha's reply. "A long time ago, Jonathan and I realized Clark wasn't just our blessing. Someday, we'd have to share him with the world." There it was again. A smile colored the blonde's features, a little more genuine, more in awe of Martha's tenacity and resolution than ever before. "Protecting him suddenly became a much bigger responsibility."

Chloe nodded, but she'd seen the toll it took on Clark, knowing what others did for him. "That explains why the Red Queen eventually entered the game."

Martha's eyebrows rose in challenge, the kind of subtle but scathing look only a parent could make. "I've been watching you, too." Guilt immediately colored Chloe's features in a way that would've made Diana scold her for not keeping her emotions in check. "I know you took over from where Waller left off." Of course she did. It would've been foolish to assume that because Waller had been ousted that Martha wasn't still watching the arms of Checkmate, the various rooks and pawns - like Flagg - to see where the pieces fell. "But, why did you leave Clark's side in the first place?"

Chloe swallowed. For just a moment, she wanted to tell her everything. She wanted to tell someone,  _anyone_ , the mysteries that Fate had dropped into her head and let fester. She wanted to tell someone about the nights spent curled up in a foreign bed in a foreign, unwelcoming locale as pain wracked her mind and body. But, she couldn't. Not even to Mrs. Kent. "Same reason you did." Chloe's half-truth flowed smoothly off her tongue. "It turns out there's a very fine line between being protective and being overprotective." It was a lesson that had taken Chloe almost an entire year to learn, and only because she had Oliver to focus some of her effort on. Even then, seeing how his attachment to her had been a distraction and was a large part of the irrational decisions he made, it had driven home for Chloe that she  _could not_  always be there. If she was... she remembered the decimation Clark left in his wake when Waller kidnapped her. The way Oliver wrecked himself to try to bring her back...

"We both needed to leave for Clark to stand up on his own." Martha took a seat on her hospital bed as she spoke. There was always an ease to Martha's demeanor. Even the most difficult of questions, the toughest of days, she seemed to just breeze through with a careful, measured wisdom. "But, maybe we stepped away too far."

"Mrs. Kent. I never stopped watching his back." Chloe insisted without thinking. She'd gotten so distracted in her own thoughts, the mixed emotions of having left her family and coming back, the way she'd told everyone she was back for good, when she knew that Fate hadn't promised that to her. Was it Martha's minor inference of disapproval that had Chloe backpedaling, or was it the fact that she knew while she'd left, there had been moments where Chloe might've strayed too far. Martha's approval was never something Chloe thought she'd had to work for, but right now, she needed it more than anything. With her mind spinning the last few months in a constant tug-of-war between hunting the Winchester way and coming back to Watchtower, she needed to reinforce that she was doing the right thing. Now that she was back in Metropolis, Chloe desperately hoped Fate would stop trying to blur those lines between hero and villain.

"Clark needs you as much as the world needs him." Martha's words derailed Chloe's train of thought, forcing her right onto the station. "You're part of this family, Chloe."

If it had been a year or two ago, before she'd lost Jimmy, then lost Oliver, and lost her life down to her digital footprint, Chloe would have probably cried and hugged Martha, thanking her a million times over for what she'd said. And inside, she was doing just that. She wanted to hold her and cry and just tell her everything. She wanted to be fourteen again, and she wanted Martha to make pie, listen to Frank Sinatra on the radio, while she tried for the sixteenth time to teach Chloe how to knit.

But, that wasn't the life  _this_  Chloe had; the 24 year old burdened with the Touch of Fate, knowing one day she'd leave  _everyone_  because she'd be trapped in her own mind. The only clue she had to the details of that Fate was in the face of Dean Winchester, and he clearly didn't know. This was a family she would have to leave. She couldn't just take the open arms of the Kent family. Not now. Probably, not ever.

Chloe could at least try, though. For now. While she kept everything firmly locked away, she plastered a gentle smile on her face, one of those soft luminescent ones, and sat down across from the woman who had so easily accepted her. "You know," Chloe swallowed, sounding like it was a simple conversation about the state of Mrs. Kent's petunias. "Growing up, I never really had much of a mother figure to look up to. Until I met you." The weight, the pain of keeping everything to herself, unable to be truly honest with  _anyone_... it all kept telling her that she just couldn't let Mrs. Kent know. But, she  _wished_ she could tell her. "You really taught me what it meant to take care of the people that I love." Chloe knew that what she was saying seemed innocuous, even if it was touching. It was what was behind those words that she longed to explain to someone.

"And as Clark's oldest friend, I can't think of anyone better to watch over him." Martha replied with a little smile. She reached up, touching Chloe's cheek with a little brush of her fingers. And that scale tipped in honesty's favor.

"I will always look after him, Mrs. Kent. As long as I am able." Chloe breathed, the resignation in her voice impossible to miss. "I just don't know how long that's going to be, and I don't think it's fair that he should have to lose his mother, too."

Martha's sweet smile faded in its entirety, worry furrowing her brow, wrinkled by too many years that had silvered her red hair as well. "Chloe, what're you talking about? Is something wrong?" Chloe was silent as she tried to think of how to put everything into some semblance of coherent thought. Where to begin? "Something that isn't about the VRA?" She reached down, touching one of her bangled wrists gently, but her voice was firm, darker, as she knew the Red Queen to sound. "Is this about the Winchesters?"

Chloe blinked and flinched, stunned by the name drop. There was no way. How could Martha even know about the boys? They were hunters, and hunters were practically urban legend. "How do you know about them?" She couldn't stop herself before the question was out of her mouth, and Chloe wanted to beat her non-existent poker face into the ground at that moment.

"I told you I was watching you." She reiterated as she leaned closer. "Chloe, what those boys do, how you found that creature Flagg has under his thumb now - "

"I did what I had to." Chloe said, as much for herself as for Martha. "Politics makes for strange bedfellows, you know that."

"But, the Suicide Squad? And supernatural guns for hire?"

"The boys aren't like that. The Winchesters are good men, they just bend the law - "

"They  _break_  it-"

"Never mind, I didn't mean to upset you." Chloe found herself saying, and all consideration of being honest with Martha went out the window. If Martha had reservations about the Winchesters now, there was no way Chloe could tell her about her visions of her... sacrifice to Fate. She couldn't risk ruining whatever future good could come of her relationship with the omnipotent force. "I just meant that..." Chloe faltered for just the briefest second while she tried to quick-draw an excuse. "I meant that we don't know what's coming. For all I know, I won't be here in a year, two years. Hell, two months. We've all skirted death so many times, each of us has a target on our back and Death is just waiting to swing his sickle." She paused as she tried to tell herself that it was better if Mrs. Kent didn't know about what was coming. It was bad enough that she clearly had an inkling of the Darkness coming. If she  _really_  saw Chloe as family, it would only hurt to know. It was Chloe's burden to bear. Alone. "I'm not saying something's wrong, I'm just saying that Clark needs you. Lois might be the port he calls home, but you're the rock he holds tight to in rough seas, Mrs. Kent." Chloe tried just one more little quirk of her lips, a furrow of her brow that was more sympathetic than concerned, and stood slowly. "That's not me, Mrs. Kent. And it'll never be. Family or not, I'm not his mother. So... please. Just be careful. He needs you. We all do." Chloe turned to leave, stomach churning as her face crumpled into a mixture of guilt and regret. Over the last decade, Chloe had had her fair share of arguments and things better left unsaid that had only hurt in the end. But, she'd never wanted to have to close off to the people she cared about like this.

"Chloe." Mrs. Kent's honest plea made her freeze in her tracks. Slowly, Chloe turned to face the woman she might've hurt more deeply than she'd ever intended. She just didn't know. Expecting a brush-off, or a stern scolding, Chloe found her resolve wavering again as the only other woman she'd ever considered to be a mother was looking at her with that forgiving, wise expression she'd mastered with years of dealing with Clark. "If you don't want to tell me what's bothering you, I won't make you. Everyone has their own path to take," Chloe internally flinched at the choice of words. "And everyone has their own journey, but you don't have to walk it alone. You've been so busy staying away from Clark, Oliver, Lois,  _everyone_ , but you just seem more alone than I've ever seen you." Martha picked up her bag and her jacket, then crossed the distance between them. "You've been  _very_  busy, and you've done remarkable things while you've been away from Metropolis. But, for all your talk about me being Clark's rock, I don't think you realize that you're just as much a lighthouse for the people here. You're a light to steer by, Chloe. The others have always looked to you in times of trouble,  _especially_  Clark." Chloe's eyes dropped to the floor, finding interest in a crack in the tile as she tried to ignore how often she'd done things in the last two years that she knew, intrinsically, Clark couldn't, and wouldn't have done. "I know that you often take the harder road for the people you love. But, I don't want you to get lost in those woods."

"Mrs. Kent, I - " Chloe could feel the lie of ' _I'm handling it'_ on her lips, but she never got the chance to say them.

"Whatever allies you make, strange or typical, good or bad, trust what's in your heart. Trust the  _goodness_  that's there." A hand on her chin made Chloe's eyes force back upwards, and she swallowed. "You've changed while you've been away, and I'm not sure I like what I see behind those pretty blue eyes of yours. You're such a good person, Chloe. Don't forget that."

A thick lump had formed in her throat, and by the time she tried to swallow it down, she blinked and felt hot tears slip down her cheeks. She couldn't speak, much as she wanted to, and instead forced a quick nod, sniffling slightly while she looked anywhere but ahead.

Thankfully, Martha didn't push it further. Point made, the older woman gave Chloe a gentle pat on her shoulder, another brush on her cheek, chasing away another tear, and moved past her.

She was right.

Chloe knew she'd changed.

And she didn't know how much longer she could keep up the charade that she wasn't the Chloe Sullivan everyone in Metropolis thought she was.

**421:11:03.05**

Chloe rubbed her temple as she opened up yet another command prompt window, battling a headache cause by the mother of all headaches: Lois. Heaving a deep breath, hoping that the rush of oxygen would hit her blood vessels and wake her up somehow, Chloe sat up straight and reached for her coffee cup. When Lois had casually asked her to hack into every major news network and post messages calling for every Blur fan in cyberspace to send videos of appreciation to a burn address, Chloe should've known it was going to be a long day. And that was only  _half_ of what Lois wanted her to do. After her rocky morning with Mrs. Kent, Chloe had been more than happy to take on the very journalistic endeavor of writing pro-hero prose exposing the attempted assassination from that morning and all of the good heroes were doing. It felt good to be back in some semblance of the bullpen. Lois had written the majority of what the general public would see, but Chloe enjoyed the opportunity to dust off her former Daily Planet kudos and do her Alma Mater proud. Only problem was that she'd written her first couple of articles to drop onto the major news sites and was doing the dry, technical hacking. Hence the need for coffee.

Chloe rose her blur-logo'd yellow and red coffee cup to her lips, but there was no blessed fuel for the Chloe machine. This was not acceptable.

With one cursory glance at the bottom of her mug, as if she could will more coffee into existence, she pulled herself out of her seat and walked over to her kitchenette on the bottom floor of Watchtower. Rinsing out her mug, she looked over at her coffee pot, where another 6 Chloe-sized cups of coffee stayed warm on the burner for her. She smiled, filling up her mug while the nutty aroma swept up to reach her nose. There was one real, true, completely selfish and materialistic benefit to being back in Metropolis - she had her coffee. And it was  _good_ coffee. It wasn't burnt, crappy, couldn't-find-a-Starbucks coffee that she'd choked down far too many times in horrible cash-only hotels.

Chloe paused, her mug warming her upper lip as a stray thought soured her coffee high.

Even with it being bitter as turpentine and twice as thick, Chloe's stomach suddenly longed for that burnt, horrible coffee from the cash-only hotels in the middle of nowhere. But, it wasn't because of the taste, it was because of the obvious connection to those transient things.

Chloe set her coffee cup down as the Winchesters completely invaded her otherwise Hunter-free day.

She missed them. It didn't surprise her, honestly. Ever since she'd left Metropolis, the people she  _did_ let in were friendships  _forged_ , not grown. They were nothing like her friends and family from Smallville; the people she'd been raised with, had grown up with, and even with Oliver, changed and evolved with. No. Ted, Bruce, Diana, Sam, and Dean... they were forged. Thrown together in the heat of intense dedication and focus to their individual causes, somehow Chloe was drawn to them until something greater, stronger was honed.

Ted was a bitter man, trying to kill himself slowly while he'd forgotten about what made him Wildcat in the first place, and it was in Chloe seeking him out, forcing him to teach her like one of his students, that he rediscovered his passion.

Bruce was a reckless vigilante whose responsibility to "his" city couldn't be tempered with the identity crisis he'd been suffering from. It was the shades of Oliver she saw in him that brought them together at Ted's behest, and through the uneasy alliance, helped bring Bruce's dream of the Batman to fruition.

Diana was a Princess, trapped on an island bogged down in her beautiful, yet ancient culture, wanting freedom to explore the world that Chloe had come from. It was in her mother's demands that Diana teach Chloe to be an Amazon, and thus the very symbol of what Diana was both proud of and yet hated for its stifling nature, that they became friends and received Hippolyta's blessing to leave the island. Their two different worlds had come together and formed a bond that Chloe had only ever felt with Lois, and even then, this was unique, unable to be duplicated with anyone else from the world Chloe knew.

And then there were the Winchesters. Sam and Dean. A unit, more than team, even at the worst she'd seen, Chloe had known just in one day that she couldn't accept one without the other. They were a true package deal. And she had had no interest in growing close to people. She was in Delight for her own reasons, and instead, Sam and Dean had dragged her, kicking and screaming, out of her isolation and into their circle. Their friendship hadn't been mutual so much as a demand on the part of the boys. Sam was the easier of the two to befriend, but even so, he had witnessed the power barely contained in Chloe's body, buried so deeply that she didn't control it, but rather it swelled and gushed forth like Old Faithful. And he'd accepted that. In fact, the two of them had that in common, although he wouldn't tell her what.

Dean's friendship had been more exhausting. Like a blacksmith trying to hone an axe from a blunt block to sharp blade, Dean and Chloe had tried to let each other in, but she'd kept things to herself and assumed that what she saw of Dean was what she was going to get. He'd surprised her as Bathory's influence sent Chloe spiralling, making her realize just how badly she'd misjudged him. Dean and Chloe were on the way to an easy rapport, much like the one she had with Sam. But, when it came to life or death, Chloe and Dean had both tried to dominate and lead. It wasn't until they were forced together in (well, at this point, it wasn't cliche so much as Chloe's sad reality) a twist of fate to spend a week in the swamps, peeling back layers, learning their quirks, each of them learning to trust the other with various skills that Chloe felt the steel chains link around her wrist and his. Sam and Dean were a unit, but Chloe would be a fool to think that Dean wasn't the more intense connection she'd formed, and that  _terrified_ her. Especially since her last entanglement had left her just thinking she couldn't read him. Dean was unpredictable when it came to his reactions with Chloe.

Chloe licked her lips as a pulse of longing surged through her. Thoughts of just how intense Dean could be had brought forth the very pleasant, but conflicting, memories of his body pressed against hers, the Impala's door handle digging into her hip as he kissed her with a measured strength that clearly showed Dean  _wasn't_  all talk, but much more interested in showing how he felt, apparently.

She took a deep breath and turned to go back to her desk, but was distracted the entire saunter back. The smell of leather and aftershave in Ted's old office as Dean's hand grabbed her arm and held her close, his lips trying to tell her volumes while he tried to dissuade her from going after Flagg.

Great. Now she was  _completely_  distracted. And guilt over the fact that she was lusting after a man who was probably half-way across the country right now was, surprisingly, non-existent.  _Oh, this is dangerous, Chloe. We are not going to have an encore of your greatest flops._  This felt like the temptations that Davis had once held over her, subtly pulling her away from Jimmy without any effort.

The only difference was that now, Chloe was a ticking bomb, and she knew she'd already lost Oliver. That was probably why she found her thoughts drifting to Dean. That  _had_  to stop.

Her phone rang on her desk, and Chloe blinked the thoughts away entirely as she sat back down and answered the call. "Hello?"

"Hey!" Relief on a completely visceral level swept over her.

" _Sam!_ " Chloe breathed, grinning from ear to ear in a way that was probably reserved for the younger Winchester and his puppy dog eyes. "It's so good to hear your voice!" Setting her coffee down on the desk, all but forgotten, Chloe rolled her desk chair back a little, running a hand through her hair. "I was worried. Please tell me Dean found you."

"What?" A ringing noise on Sam's end of the line drowned out whatever he was trying to say, but after it dissipated, he continued on uninterrupted. "Yeah, actually, he found me a while ago. Week or so."

"Were you hurt?"

A groan and nervous, but somehow not really happy chuckle escaped Sam's lips. "Um... no. I was... it's a really long story. I was possessed by a demon and then they managed to get her out, but, the whole thing is complicated... I did some..." Sam trailed off. Chloe didn't want to push him, so she let him take his time. The very  _idea_  that someone could get possessed by a demon, and that a  _hunter_  of all people would be... Chloe swallowed and made a mental note to start compiling more information on the supernatural for Watchtower's databases. Her files on hunters were paper-thin already. Of course, it was putting one foot in Hunting and one back in Watchtower, but Chloe told herself it was  _just_  for research. Just for the benefit of the team. "It was bad. I'd rather not talk about it, actually."

"Of course. Believe me, I've had my fair share of experiences I never want to dredge up again." Chloe waited, to see if there was something else Sam wanted to talk about, but when he didn't offer, she found her mouth running on its own. It wasn't often that she started to compulsively fill the silence, but in this instance, she felt it was justified. "I'm glad to hear you're doing better. I would've gone to help, but unfortunately - "

"It's okay, you don't have to apologize. Dean told me what happened. Something about you two in a swamp with a zombie? And then you had to, and I'm quoting here, 'Go on some goddamn suicide mission 'cause you're infuriating and you don't owe that rich sonuvabitch anything.'" She groaned softly in response. "Yeah, I know. You did a number on him. What did you guys do for  _five days_  in a swamp? I mean, didn't you want to wring his neck?"

Unbidden, images of those kisses flickered past at the question, and Chloe smirked, feeling completely at ease. Sam's voice alone had brought her back to those motels, sitting in the Impala with the boys listening to music while they drove to visit a witness, a generic sort of fantasy that Chloe had forced herself to acknowledge. She could forget Watchtower, the decade of history, of friends and family that were all too quickly going to lose her. Sam and Dean were nomads, and for at least the near future, their orbits and Chloe's orbit were shared. At least, that was what she told herself. She told herself that she felt so close to Diana, Dean, Sam and Ted because of their transient nature, not because there might have been an underlying reason that those intense connections had formed so quickly and felt just as powerful as her friendship with Clark or Lois... or Oliver.

"Anyway," Chloe blinked as Sam kept talking, trying to chase the sexual tension away. "He seemed, uh... different after I got back. Definitely seemed to be on slightly better terms about you, and I'm grateful for that, because I enjoy talking to you and don't need him griping in my ear."

She chuckled. "He's always gonna do that, Sam. I'm fairly certain that's how he shows he loves you." Chloe's eyes caught a flicker on her monitor, and she rolled forward, mindlessly beginning the process of hacking for heroes again. "So, where have you been? If he found you, I'm surprised you didn't call sooner."

"We were in a pretty intense case. In the middle of this thing with a werewolf and we had to..." Did Sam's voice shake? Chloe stopped typing. "Um..."

Silence. Chloe thought she could hear a sniff on the other line. No. He hadn't mentioned where Dean was. Why was he upset? "Sam, what happened?" Concern filtered right out of her. She'd been so scared for the brothers that every time she thought about their lives, she was afraid one or both of them would end up dead.

Sam cleared his throat so loudly that Chloe could imagine the way his whole body shook in response. He was steadying himself. She hadn't seen him upset, not truly upset before, but she knew that noise when he was growing tired, or bored. "We had to kill the wolf, and it was a mess. She was, um... she was really sweet. And I..." Sam went silent again. Chloe took the second to deconstruct that sentence. They had done it together. Dean was probably fine and... she'd completely not thought that Sam might've been upset because he was closer to the case and that was... sadly how it sounded.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I shouldn't have asked." Her heart sank. "We don't have to talk about it." She paused, an idea coming to mind that she knew was probably a long shot, but maybe it would cheer him up nonetheless. "Hey. Are you guys near Kansas? I'm, um, I'm back in Metropolis. You should come by for a visit."

Sam groaned a little. "Of course you'd ask now. We can't. I mean, not right now."

"Oh, c'mon, when was the last time you guys saw a movie?" Chloe teased, trying to drag a good mood out of him again.

"I guess it depends on if you mean in a theater or behind the scenes." Sam was chuckling now, but it was thick, she could hear tears still stuck in the back of his mouth. "We're actually, uh...  _in_  LA right now."

"You are?" Chloe squinted in confusion and sat up straight.

"We're actually sort of... PA's on a really,  _really_  bad horror film."

"You realize that between that and a good read of 'Tales of the Weird and Unexplained', that's a  _date_  for me." Chloe found herself wishing she could sit and watch a good B-film with Lana, back when they were in school. How times changed.

"I'll be sure to let Dean know." Sam smirked, and Chloe flushed. Her eyes scanned the Watchtower, as if someone was about to pop up out of nowhere and berate her for the fact that Dean's brother was not making her conflicted feelings any easier to handle.

Clearing her throat, she reached up to brush a few blonde locks out of her eyes. "So, is this Dean's way of cheering you up after a rough case?"

"Actually? Yeah." He was relaxing; she could hear it in his voice. The further he got from whatever rough case they had, the better he sounded. "Not just me, though. He wanted the break. Of course... it's miserable weather. It looks like, I dunno, Middle-of-Nowhere, Canada. If there were no palm trees, I would go look for maple syrup and mounties." Chloe smiled, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it. "Honestly, I just wanted to work after what happened, and Dean's busy, I dunno, pilfering mini-cheesesteaks from the catering tables."

"Man, I don't know if they have clinics for that level of junk food addiction, but Dean could use a visit." The mental image of his cheeks stuffed with mini-cheesesteaks like a chipmunk hoarding nuts for the winter was definitely amusing, though."He's just looking out for you. You two might be at each other's throats sometimes, but when the chips are down, he's there. I haven't known you two that long, and even I can tell."

"I know, I just..." Sam sighed, there was another ringing somewhere in the background. "I just hate cases like that one. I mean,  _listen to me_. We call them 'cases' but she was a  _person_ , Chloe, and I let her down." Uh-oh. The spigot was starting to turn, and Chloe's expression sank along with that heart of hers. It was already in her stomach practically, how much lower could it go? She might just end up with a fully running faucet in a minute. "Shit," He hissed, more upset than Chloe had realized. "I wasn't going to tell you any of this, I was just calling to say hi, because I just wanted to hear someone who doesn't act like her heart's been stomped into a million pieces," Sam's voice shook again, and Chloe found herself wondering if she could beg Bart for a favor  _just this once_  to go see him. He was in pain, and she wanted to fix that. "You deal with the hero crap, but you're still  _normal_. You're not..."

"I get it, Sam." Her voice was warm, inviting, she hoped. Soothing. "I wasn't born being special. I just... kind of fell into the orbits of other special people around me. And sometimes, you just want to talk about things that aren't... y'know, whatever thing that went bump in the night this time." Not that Chloe would call herself an adequate example of a 'normal' person that Sam should talk to, but she could understand his desire for that false equivocacy. But, maybe that was what really bothered him... "Sam... you know, even people like the Blur have days like this. The things they wish they'd done differently, the people they wished they'd saved. It's  _normal_  for you to feel upset." Silence on the other end. She had to hope he was taking what she said to heart. "And it's normal for you to do whatever you need to in order to move past that. But, don't let it bog you down. Don't become someone who sits there and notches his bedpost with the people he  _lost_  rather than the people he  _saved._ "  _Your brother was close enough to that with Bathory for the both of you._  "Everyone has sensitive points. Cases that are tough to shake. Me, too." The gold K necklace around Grundy's neck, even hours away, with the zombie secured in a Suicide Squad facility, probably reading a book and only retaining maybe a page or two of information, was proof that Chloe had regrets. She had cases and methods she found herself regretting more and more. "You just have to pick yourself up and keep trying. And I know you can do that."

Silence lingered between them so long that, if she hadn't heard that ringing again, she would have assumed he had hung up. "Thank you." He finally said, sounding more like himself than he had most of the conversation. "You are... scarily good at the pep talk, you know that?"

Martha's words of lighthouses rang in Chloe's ears. She smiled. "I'm just your friend, Sam, so I'm looking out for you. I swear, there is no script, no perfect speech to give. And I'm glad it worked for you."

"You don't sound terribly convinced of your abilities here."

Chloe's eyes drifted to the command prompt in front of her, cursor blinking, just as impatient as she was. "There's no blow to one's pride quite as acute as realizing your word isn't good enough for your best friend anymore." If there was bitterness in her voice, Chloe didn't mean for it to bleed through. She knew that it was unrealistic and more than a little selfish that Clark had pulled away from her so badly. The fact that in his own dream world, it had taken Lois's words to make him break out of his control, and nothing Chloe had said... it meant Clark had changed. He didn't need her anymore. At least, not the way he used to. It didn't matter how much Chloe had tried to encourage him, it had fallen on deaf ears the last few days. Lois's idea of anonymous, overwhelming support was something Chloe  _wished_ she had thought of on her own. The truth was, Chloe might've been good at cheering Sam up, but every day she felt like she knew her family less and less.

"I take it the reunion with your friends didn't go so well."  _Understatement of the century._

"Considering I'm attempting a massive 'we love the Blur' internet video campaign to boost said Blur's confidence? Let's just say that my decision to erase myself from everything and anyone, including them, did not leave them with the most... trustworthy impression of me."

"But, didn't you tell them why? I mean, you told us you were protecting them."

Another deep breath. She tried to bleed tension out so her shoulders would relax. "I was. And I told them all that when I got back. I mean, honestly, Sam, they're all acting like everything's just fine, but in reality, they all have reasons not to trust me now. I think the only one who took it at face value was Lois. I thought..." A nervous, disbelieving chuckle escaped her lips. "I don't know, I guess I thought that they would just accept it. You get it more than they do."

"Yeah, well, Dean gets it, too."

The chuckle died in her throat. "Sam, he doesn't know what you know. Not even my friends know what you know. What you've seen."

"I figured." The seriousness in Sam's voice surprised her, even though he'd shown he could be serious all the time. The two of them had shared several quiet conversations after their brush with Bathory. He had come clean about this darkness he saw inside himself, but he didn't know why exactly his father was so convinced of that darkness. Chloe had suggested that it was related to the same one her team was facing, but the more her visions and dreams persisted, the less she was convinced. Her dreams of Sam and Dean left her with paralytic fear, a terror that locked her lungs and throat in silent screams. It wasn't the same as the Darkness that left her anxious, unable to sleep, but ultimately focused. "Chloe, I'm not gonna tell him unless you want me to, but - "

"No, Sam, please don't - " Chloe could feel herself ramping up, but thankfully, Sam ignored her and continued regardless.

"If you need anyone to talk to, you can always call me. You don't need to be a stranger now that you're back with your friends in Metropolis. I mean... Hell, I'm the guy who tried as hard as he possibly could for 'normal', so I get if you want to detach, but don't feel like that means you have to be a loner. And if your friends don't trust you, then they need their heads checked." There was another ring, followed by a gruff shout that Chloe thought she could recognize. "I gotta go. I'll tell Dean you're doing okay. I'll talk to you soon, bye."

"Bye - " Chloe heard her phone beep as the line disconnected, and she sighed. "Nice talking to you, too, Sam." She slowly lowered her phone to the desk and glanced at the cursor, blinking expectantly. With each blink, she felt herself drifting further and further away now that she'd spoken to Sam.

They understood it. But Clark and the others didn't.

And they never would.

**421:2:51.56**

With Sam's conversation with her all but forgotten, Chloe had spent the last nine hours working on Lois's grand scheme. She had actually hardwire connected her laptop to the Planet's ethernet, just so she could have the additional streaming capability, and had everything in place for what she and Lois both hoped would be the significant push to get Clark to believe, not just in himself, but in his impact on others around him. She told herself that this was exactly what she needed to do, to help Lois. This sort of guerilla campaign was exactly what both of them excelled with.

As the minutes kept ticking closer to 10 PM, that sense of focus she'd regained was fading. The yellow glow from the lamp on the desk only highlighted how forlorn her expression was, even as she busied herself. It was nice to tell herself that she was integral to helping Clark's morale; but, she knew that wasn't the case. In reality, this was Lois's idea. And it  _should_  be, Chloe knew that. While she'd been gone, if there was one thing that had gone right, it was Lois and Clark. They were stronger than ever, and it was... bittersweet.

Again, Chloe felt like she didn't belong. She didn't belong...  _anywhere_.

"Cheer up, Clark! Lex, Lionel? You had a big win tonight!" Lois's voice pierced the sounds of the cleaning staff in the otherwise closed building, and Chloe quickly queued up her video program before standing straight.

Clark's voice joined Lois's as Chloe turned to face them. "I think we'll still lose today. And after this vote, I'll be an outlaw forever." Chloe's stomach swam as her nerves tried to get the better of her. She might've looked calm and collected on the outside as Clark stopped cold, but she didn't feel that way. The Darkness was still coming. Clark needed to be strong, to be sure of himself. She didn't necessarily know why, but she knew that Clark's conviction would be needed. And without his heart, there'd be nothing for him to hold onto.

"Hey." She said by way of greeting, smiling softly and tilting her head with its bouncing curls towards the laptop. "You might wanna take a look at this."

The unspoken question of 'What're you planning?' on Clark's face pushed all her fears away. He was her best friend, and for all intents and purposes, the closest thing to a brother she would ever have. He needed this. Maybe it didn't matter that he didn't believe Chloe. All that mattered was that she did what  _she_  was supposed to do. She didn't support Clark because she thought it would get her something: she supported Clark because he deserved it. And it was what family did.

Clark's eyes scanned the website in front of him. "A beacon of hope shining light on the truth?"

Lois spoke up on his other side. Chloe knew that body language. Her cousin was all nerves. "It's our answer to the VRA."

Clark looked at them both expectantly, not sure what they were planning. Without further ado, Chloe moved towards her laptop and clicked the play button on her streaming player.

And just like that, the seeds they planted that morning blossomed into beautiful flowers of hope and support.

_"Hey, Blur, it's Brian. I'd like to consider myself a long-time supporter of these so-called 'vigilantes'..."_ The faces passed across their vision almost too quickly, each message more inspiring and comforting than the last.  _"I remember what it was like here in Metropolis before he came. You couldn't even walk the streets. Since the Blur came, we have hope."_

_"Being a hero isn't about being able to save every person from a mugging... but to give people hope."_ Lois hadn't heard a word of the testimonials. Chloe had to, given that she wanted to vet out any false testimonials, but to her surprise, the first 10 she'd seen, the ones that were playing now, were like most of the others. There wasn't a single negative testimonial in the bunch. All of those messages did seem to be genuine.

_"The Blur is a symbol for integrity, morality, and selflessness."_

_"Thank you for helping me believe that heroes can and do exist."_ Chloe glanced over at Clark, her eyes warming as emotion threatened to overtake her. He was in awe of the overwhelming support. Good. He deserved to be.

_"As long as you're doing what you're doing to keep our hometown safe..."_

_"When I see the Blur and others like them turn their differences into strengths, it gives me hope that one day, I can do the same."_ They kept coming. She knew they would. If she and Lois wanted to, they could be up all night, listening to all these people tell Clark just how important he was, even if they didn't know him, didn't see his face.

" _Hey, Blur."_  Chloe stopped, the lingering half-smile on her face melting to slack-jawed surprise. The ruddy mop of hair, the deep voice, and that supremely hopeful look belonged to Sam Winchester.  _"You, uh, you don't know me. And that's how it should be. I'm, uh... I guess you could say I'm a fan. But, that's not really why I'm leaving this for you, I guess."_ To Clark and Lois, it didn't mean any more than the other testimonials they watched. But... Sam... they were in LA, what was he doing?  _"See, thing is: the reason I look up to people like you isn't because of the notches on your belt, y'know? It's because of the strength of your character. It doesn't matter what the government says, it doesn't matter what some joe on the street says, it matters what your heart says. And your_ _ **friends**_ _are part of that character. So, I mean, it doesn't matter where all of us are. We're your friends. And if you think we care? Look around you. Look at the people who've always stood by you. Because if you need a beacon, then just look at the people who are with you not because you're the Blur, but because you're their friends."_ Sam smiled, clearing his throat, and Chloe's heart nearly broke at the sound.  _"Good friends are family, Blur. And seeing you, doing what you do... it reminds me that there's family. For everyone."_

The screen changed to another video, and Chloe quickly blinked back a mist of tears that threatened to fall.

_"Everybody has a favorite hero. My favorite hero is the blur. We love you, Blur. We're always here for you."_

Clark reached forward and stopped the video streaming. For a moment, Chloe expected a negative reaction. Anger, frustration, more morose hopelessness. Instead, that awe had given his lips a quirk, his eyes were still locked on that screen, but even from a profile view, Chloe could tell it worked.

"I can't believe they'd risk coming out to defend me." Clark muttered, pleasantly amazed.

A silent little smirk, and Chloe shook her head, grinning. "You have no idea how much you mean to people, Clark Kent." Her tone was sincere. Chloe knew it was true. Clark had lived his whole life relatively unaware of the impact he had to others. Even his closest friends. He turned, and the smile he sent her way might've been small, but it suddenly lifted Chloe's heart. It had worked.

And then he started to walk away, the moping evident before he'd even started. He slipped around Lois and made it halfway from the bullpen before he finally voiced his concerns. "I don't think a couple hundred testimonials will be enough to change the vote."

Chloe's eyebrows went up. Last year, he'd taken all of this in stride. Now? He seemed shocked that anyone could still support him. "Try a couple hundred  _thousand._ " Chloe stated, crossing her arms over her chest. Clark stopped, turning to face her. "All of them willing to step forward for you." For just a moment, Chloe let herself feel a little pride for her part in all of the plan. "They just needed a place to be heard."

Clark managed a half smile, but her words hadn't quite sunk in. It wasn't enough.

It wasn't until Lois stepped forward, and Clark looked to her that Chloe's heart twisted with jealousy she couldn't name. It wasn't romantic. It just... was. Chloe had left, and while she'd been off doing things that blurred those lines between right and wrong, all for her friends...

They'd moved on without her. Most importantly, Clark had moved on. Mrs. Kent was wrong.

"You're an American hero, Clark." Lois said softly. Chloe expected to be forgotten as the moment shared between those two wasn't something she had a right to intrude upon. And she knew, deep down, that it would always happen. She'd said for years that she wasn't the hero, and it wasn't her fate to be at Clark's side forever. Some day, others would have to take that role. Fate had told her as much. Martha had said that Jonathan was her best friend as well as her husband. And Chloe was going to have to give up the role of best friend to both Lois and Clark at some point. It wasn't... bad. But, Chloe could feel a sinking sense of resignation creeping in. When that happened, they wouldn't need her anymore. They'd have each other.

And then Clark looked to her again, as if he needed one last reassurance.

_If you need a beacon, then just look at the people who are with you not because you're the Blur, but because you're their friends._ Sam.

_Oh_.

That was what he meant.

Chloe's lips curved upwards, but that smile didn't quite make it to her eyes. It didn't matter, though. Clark was growing further away, but for now, at least... Chloe was still a lighthouse, a light to help show the path to his home. Wherever that was.

She just had no idea what shore she was on anymore. Or how long she would be there to cut the darkness and illuminate the way home.


	3. Masks In Solicitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: Set during Supernatural (2x20) What Is And Should Never Be and Smallville (10x14) Masquerade.

**404:16:01.35**

_Dear APPLICANT LAURA GRANT,_

_Thank you for your recent application to our available REPORTER-EDITOR position at the Star City Register. Per your discussion with our Talent Acquisition Specialist, we are pleased to offer you this position. Please review, complete and return the attached offer letter, applicant packet, and waiver form. All other information is for reference only._

_Please note that as per all prior communication, we will hold this position for you specifically for 5 business days without confirmation. After the 5-day period, we will begin extending this offer to other applicants._

_We look forward to having you join our team at the Star City Register!_

_**Rebecca Hernandez** _

_Star Search! Talent Acquisition Specialist_

Chloe set her tablet down. She wasn't sure what was worse: the new alias she had used that sounded clunky and very unlike her, or the fact that the Star City Register had a form letter response that desperately needed to be formatted. With a heavy sigh, she leaned forward in her chair enough to turn the tablet display off, then relaxed again, practically oozing like an amoeba into her seat. It wasn't distinguished, or sophisticated, and it wasn't graceful, but it was an expression of just how out of sorts she felt.

The application and the phone screening had been a complete act of impulsiveness. She wasn't proud of herself, either. The unintended and unfortunate side effect of Lois's brilliant plan to bolster the Blur's spirits was the realization that Chloe was swiftly running out of time. Her impact on her team in Metropolis felt minimal, at best, and while she knew she could waste hours wallowing... Chloe Sullivan was  _not_  a wallower. Aside from recent breakdowns in solitude - which she staunchly blamed Nabu for - it wasn't in Chloe's nature to let the world pass her by while she spiralled into depression.

No, Chloe was a doer. She might've been a dreamer and creative with a keyboard, but she preferred to shape her ideas into practical application. What good were new ideas on security if she never implemented them? There had been a time when Chloe led the quests for information and exposure, not merely propped them up. Somewhere along the way, she'd lost that.

_That_  wasn't the revelation. She'd known that since the day the Amazons dragged her out of the briny waters of Themyscira. She'd known that the day she met Dean and Sam, which had given her a glimpse into a completely different kind of life, one she thought she could feel... special. It was juvenile, she supposed, but, she was a superfluous cog in the machinery that was Clark's team. They didn't need her as Watchtower; they had Tess. Her role couldn't even be called "diminished", as it was practically non-existent. She was a vagrant, a "consultant" while Clark and Lois tried to figure out how to stop the Darkness that Chloe could sense drawing ever closer.

Her loss of identity had been a purely personal one. Clark didn't need her any longer. He had Lois. That was the way it  _should_  be, too, but it didn't make it any less jarring to realize that she was swiftly moving to a further orbit than before. That was the revelation that had caused her to fill out several applications for easy front jobs across the midwest and west coast. She wasn't content to just sit there and wait for the government to leave heroes alone. And she wasn't content to just let insanity come while Oliver risked his life every day. After all, she didn't have a career, and her calling as Watchtower had been one of emotional necessity. Now, if she had a calling, she wouldn't be able to experience it for long. That ever-present clock ticking in the back of her mind reminded her that Fate was going to claim her: she just didn't know when.

_You keep talking to Dean, and you're going to run headfirst into bedlam._  A voice chided within. It was a  _rational_  voice, and that probably was what bothered her the most about the fact that she was looking for jobs... coincidentally along major hubs of the hunting corridor Dean and Sam had frequented in the months since she'd met them.

Yet again, thoughts about Dean troubled her and fascinated her. Chloe stood and made her way over to the couch in the center of the room, curling up into the corner of the soft cushions and basking in the warm sunlight. It was deceptively warm where she lay, snuggled up and drowsy like a feline. Outside, the weather had turned unpleasantly chilly from the beginnings of a cold snap. As if on cue, Chloe flashed back to the last cold snap she'd been caught in, and the week of unexpected proximity and connection with one of the Winchesters... the one that was going to be front and center when she finally sacrificed her sanity for Fate.

That was  _exactly_  why her stomach was in knots over this possible job in Star City. She told herself it would put her closer to Oliver's home, and that would put him further from the government. A city he knew better than even Metropolis. And yet, all she could think about was how being in another city, one away from the Blur, would give her the opportunity to network, to get back to what she'd done with the Isis Foundation:  _helping_  heroes before they were heroes.  _And you're including Dean and Sam on that list..._

Oh, she really needed her inner monologue to stop browbeating her and guilt-tripping her. It wasn't productive, and it didn't stop the plans within plans that her mind kept creating as she considered just what kind of base of operations she could set up in Star. If she got a good deal on some property in the inner city, it would be subtle and nondescript - the perfect place to house and counsel young people in need of guidance with abilities that seemed to be popping up all over the place, not just in Kansas. Her world had dramatically opened up in her time travelling alone, especially with the files she'd hacked from Checkmate and from Flagg. The fact was, the existence of kids like Courtney all over the world often didn't benefit from someone like Sylvester Pemberton to train and mentor them. Chloe could be that person.

Ted would have laughed at her and thrown her a party, claiming he rubbed off on her, but she knew this felt right, felt... like her.

_Except for the part where you seem to be planning your life around what the men you know are doing..._  Oh, that voice was much more biting than Chloe would have preferred. It wasn't  _wrong_ , though.

Chloe had spent months on her own, unchained and unfettered by her interpersonal relationships. Diana came and went as she pleased (and she would have an earful for Chloe if she knew the line the blonde was feeding herself); Ted never expected more than focus in the ring; and Bruce, bless him, wasn't fit for human consumption most days. It was only after meeting the Winchesters that she began to form connections that felt... more meaningful. Maybe it was what she'd thought a couple weeks ago, about how her friendships since leaving Metropolis were forged, not organically grown.

Yeah... it was becoming quite clear to Chloe that her real reasoning for looking to anywhere but Metropolis had nothing to do with Oliver, and that excuse was an insult to everyone involved. Chloe had learned how to fly on her own, but now her wings felt clipped.

Those thoughts were the ones that kept spinning in her mind as she let the warmth of the sunlight wash over her, soothing her and mellowing her mood until her eyes felt heavy. Plans about how she would finance her personal new project went by the wayside as her vision fluttered to darkness.

_The bed was empty._

_Chloe reached for the warmth she knew should be there, and frowned, pulling her eyes open with more force than she thought should have been necessary. From Hell It Came was still playing, blaring on the TV as part of their late-night B-movie run he'd distracted her from with kisses and wandering hands. She shifted and sat up, ignoring the fact that the sheets fell from her bare chest. She was baring everything God gave her, but she was more concerned about Dean. Why wasn't he in bed?_

_Rubbing sleep-filled eyes, she pulled herself out of bed and grabbed one of Dean's few dress shirts draped across the dresser. She slipped the dark blue material around her shoulders and buttoned it up a few buttons as she padded her way into the living room._

_She found him standing in the middle of the room, obviously distracted, muttering to himself. "Lawrence... what the hell?_ _**Chloe?** _ _"_

_She tilted her head at the surprise in the way he said her name. "Hotshot? What're you doing up?"_

" _C-Chloe..." He whirled to face her, stammering as he looked her over with practically new eyes. He seemed absolutely speechless at the sight of her, as if he couldn't believe she was there. She was pretty sure she was now blushing from head to toe. "You are... wearing my shirt." He said with awe, pointing at the cotton buttoned just up to her bust. That smirk of surprise, sass and arousal flashed across his face and made her smile. "That is..._ _ **incredibly**_ _attractive."_

" _Are you okay?" Chloe stepped forward. She didn't smell any alcohol on his breath, but he seemed disoriented. "You have a nightmare?" She slipped her arms around his waist, frowning as he tensed a little. Must have been another dream about his father..._

_His eyes scanned her face, taking it all in before he finally answered with a breathless "Yeah..."_

" _Well..." She lifted up onto her toes and kissed him gently. "Why don't you come back to bed and see if I can do anything to help..." She knew he'd probably collapse again once he made it back to bed, but the offer was genuine._

" _Sure. Yeah, uh..." His fingers brushed blonde strands from her eyes, and she shivered against him pleasantly. "In a minute. You..." He breathed. "You go ahead."_

" _Don't take too long, Arsenal." Chloe smirked as he let her go, and she turned to leave._

_Wait... Arsenal? Why would she call him Arsenal? He was a mechanic._

_**No, he's a Hunter.** _

Chloe jumped a little as she awoke, disoriented and warm from the sunlight. It took her a moment to recognize her surroundings, and she still wound up wiping her eyes to wake up. Chloe breathed, trying to push the very odd dream she'd just had out of her mind. She'd been dreaming about Dean.  _And her._

Not that it made any sense. She'd had the occasional dream about people in scenarios she didn't expect, but... she had dreamt. About him being a mechanic. And being  _together_ , in a most definitely domestic sense. She sat up, shifting a pillow behind her back, trying to shake the bizarre feeling that kept running up and down her spine. She'd had some... truly imaginative illusions, varying in believability and realism, but nothing quite like this. A delusion completely rooted in a setting that wasn't familiar for her and wasn't any sort of fantasy she wanted. Even more than that, Chloe was a pretty lucid dreamer. She frequently controlled her dreams, or at least had a sense of control over her own actions.

This time, it had almost been like she was having a dream through... a different Chloe's eyes.

A Chloe who had been wrapped up in Dean's arms and unabashedly inviting him to bed, reminding Chloe just how deep she had buried that gnawing loss of Dean's conversation and presence.

Her cell began ringing incessantly in her lap. Chloe flushed as she grabbed for her phone.

"Um, hello?" She answered, groggy and trying to sound more alert than she felt. Her hand rested on her forehead as she swept her hair back.

"Have I ever told you how adorable you sound when you're half-asleep?" Oliver. For some reason, her stomach flipped unpleasantly with a mix of surprise and... guilt?

"Very funny, Oliver." Hearing from him should have brought that rush of nervous energy she was accustomed to. Instead, her mind was still trying to process that dream. She normally had more control in her dreams, and they were rooted in reality. That dream had been...  _strange_. It hadn't felt like a normal dream.

"Are you listening to me?"

Chloe had  _totally_  lost track of Oliver, who was still talking on the other end. "I'm sorry, I'm listening. Yes, yes, the answer's yes." She had assumed there was a question she'd missed, probably Oliver asking her if he was ever going to see her again (or an equally dramatic turn of phrase).

"Oh. Well, good." He sounded a little surprised as well, and the dream was finally completely out of her thoughts as she wondered just  _what_  she'd agreed to. "So, then I guess the Ace of Clubs, Friday at 8 would be acceptable?"

Chloe's jaw dropped as she tried to process what exactly he had planned. "Sure." She bluffed with a smile she was glad he couldn't see. It probably would have given away just how off-guard she was.

"Really? I mean, I can't get us reservations, we'd just be a couple of Joe Publics - "

"It's fine, Ollie." Chloe stood and shook the last of her jitters out, more at ease knowing that he was winging this idea of his. "It's not like we haven't gone undercover before."

He laughed on the other line, although Chloe distinctly felt like she wasn't in on the joke. "Chlo, c'mon, this is  _dinner_. I mean, it's going to be one hell of a special dinner, but I have to say, I'm not too happy that I have to work while I play."

She rolled her eyes a bit. "We could always go somewhere else - "

"Are you kiddin'? Hell, no. I will see you on Friday. Well, before Friday. But  _definitely_  Friday. At the Ace of Clubs. In fact - " Oliver paused just as Chloe heard one of her monitors beep a warning across the room. "What is that?"

Chloe made her way to the monitor and pulled up the warning message. Watchtower's systems aggregated data from all over the world almost as fast as Brainiac. "The cops are responding to a body they've found. Suspected homicide."

"Where?" The change in his voice wasn't even close to subtle. She could practically visualize him bolting for his costume.

"Oliver,  _no_ ," Chloe tried to pull up additional information as the system brought it in. "You're still a wanted man. Green Arrow certainly can't be near the site."

"The word 'homicide' just came out of your mouth, and you expect me to just... play solitaire?" She knew that he'd been getting antsy, but Chloe had been pretty distracted the last few days and hadn't done enough to be supportive for him. Caught up in her own quiet machinations about fronts and callings, Oliver had been going on many of his 'morning walks'. Only they had quickly ramped back up to morning, noon and night walks.

" _Yes_." She hissed, but sympathy for his frustration bled through. "I know it's asking a lot, but you've spent more time this week doing exactly what you promised me you  _wouldn't_  do." She could sense the counter-argument on the other line before it arrived.

"The VRA is  _gone_ , Chloe - "

"And Flagg's team has no interest in you, I  _know_ , but that's not the point. You're still the darling of the press, and anything you do that could compromise a crime scene is a four-course meal for every journalist looking for a leg up. Complete with a bananas foster to flambe your reputation." Guilt had now firmly settled in her stomach as she finally sat back down at her desk. She had to get her head in the game. If she'd been more engaged with Oliver, he wouldn't have felt so antsy.  _That's a lie_. If not so antsy,  _less_  antsy.

"I'm not so sure food metaphors are gonna make me feel better, Sidekick."

Chloe's smile faded at the nickname. It struck her... wrong. She didn't know why. "Just... please, Ollie. Just let the press attention die down. Besides... I'll call J'onn. If there's anything weird, anything  _cape-_ related, you know that our favorite Martian will be the first to call in his fellow man in green."

Silence on the other end made Chloe wonder if he'd actually hung up on her. She'd never been more relieved in her life to hear his petulant, resigned sigh. "No, you're right. J'onn can do the legwork on this, and if it's something we can cover, he'll let us know." Oliver chuffed. "All I know is, Friday better get here faster. I don't know how much longer I can handle being anonymous. Considering how much work I've had to go through to vanish when I want to, fate is  _cruel._ "

If there had been anything left of Chloe's smile, it was certainly gone now. There used to be a time when the word didn't leave a bad taste in her mouth, shivers down her spine and a weight in her stomach. But, those days were gone. "I know it's rough, but the closer that Darkness gets, the more important it is that you don't give into temptation. You can let your Arrows fly soon enough, but give yourself a couple more days." Filling her lungs with a breath to bolster her mood, Chloe knew that she was going to have to distract Oliver, or he'd be off and running anyway. It was only fair, though. He deserved it, and she needed to reinforce to her subconscious who she  _actually_  went to bed with. "Tell you what. I can come over, play pizza girl and bring you something special? Take your mind off of being Oliver Queen and just be a very,  _very_  lucky man?"

A groan of frustration and bad timing wasn't what she expected. "I...  _can't._ "

"Seriously?" Chloe scoffed. "Are you kidding? You're acting like a kid with no toys and I just offered to bring you a PS3."

"I know, I  _know_ , and if this wasn't the third time I've rescheduled with your cousin, I would move heaven and earth. But, you know how she is about monster trucks, and I lost a very pricey bet while you were gone." Chloe opened her mouth, a quip ready to roll off the tongue, but her heart wasn't in it. The pause was enough to let Oliver keep going. "Look, I am going stir-crazy, and I would much rather be drunk on your perfume rather than nauseous with funk and trucker, but I promised." Chloe's heart sank, impromptu plans already ruined.

"It's okay." She forced, sounding nonplussed, when she really felt... superfluous. Again. "It was just an idea. And there is no force on this earth more terrifying than Hurricane Lois when she's been stood up. Maybe I'll surprise you tomorrow."

"Not much of a surprise if I know about it."

"Then, I guess I'll talk to you Friday." Chloe said, probably more dismissively than she meant. "Have a good time," She railroaded over whatever protest he had begun to stammer, and ended the call. She stared at her phone for a long moment as if it had personally betrayed her, then finally set it down and groaned, draping her body over her desk, arms crossed, forehead resting on cotton-covered forearms.

She hadn't meant to bite his head off.

Why did it feel like every time she thought about life outside of Metropolis, her connections here suddenly became even more unstable?

Oliver was slipping through her fingers.  _Casually._  If not now...

Soon.

**402:20:01.26**

" _Well, this looks..._ _ **awesome**_ _." Chloe chuckled with the rest of Dean's loved ones as an incredibly phallic and stupidly ornate tower of asparagus was placed in front of the elder Winchester._

" _All right." Sam smirked as he sat up, chuckles fading to genuine smiles as he reached for his glass of champagne. Hint taken, everyone else grabbed their glasses as well. "To Mom." He raised his glass in salute to the matriarch of the Winchester family, who looked beyond happy to have all of her ducks in a row. "Happy birthday."_

_Jess echoed the sentiment, and Chloe followed with a grin as the music of glasses clinking together filled the air. Mary was practically glowing, thanking them and basking in the deserved attention._

" _To mom." Dean's voice was quiet, reserved. She glanced his way and caught him watching Sam and Jess almost... wistfully._

_Chloe turned to look at him, smiling and leaning close to whisper to him while Sam and Jess talked among themselves. "Hey." He finally pulled his gaze from his brother to look over at her. "I was really worried about you last night." She continued._

" _Oh, right... um..." His eyes scanned her face as if he didn't quite understand why she was there, but then settled to meet her gaze. "I'm good." She noted there wasn't an apology in there. He still wasn't quite right, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "I'm_ _ **really**_ _good." He flashed her a grin, one that melted her heart and reminded her why she was with him._

" _Okay." Chloe reached over, her hand sliding to his thigh, dipping towards his inseam just enough to make sure she had his attention. He always brought out her adventurous spirit. "What do you say that later, we ditch the phallic fibrous first course and get you a cheeseburger?" She wiggled her eyebrows a little and bit her bottom lip as an absolutely priceless look flickered across his face. It was as if he'd forgotten what it was like to have her flirt with him._

_His response was just as priceless as he nodded and leaned closer. "Goddamn, you have the sexiest nerd speak ever. How the hell did I manage to end up with you?"_

_Her hand squeezed a little tighter across his muscles as she closed the gap between them. "I suck at fixing my car and I hear you're the best."_

_The kiss was more intense than she ever expected around his family, but she wasn't about to complain. It felt so good to kiss him; better than she could ever remember in the past._

" _All right," Sam's voice forced them apart, but not without another frisky squeeze to Dean's inner thigh before Chloe pulled away. She pulled her eyes from him over to his brother, but she was definitely thinking about all the things they could be doing that did not involve family. Chloe liked the Winchesters - they were great - but Dean wasn't much for family dinners. "Jess and I actually have another surprise for mom's birthday. Ah…" He turned to Jess, and the nervous tone of his voice made Chloe raise an eyebrow. "You wanna tell them?"_

" _They're your family." Jess chuckled and shrugged._

" _What? Tell me what?" Chloe's stomach flipped. She had a pleasant idea of what was coming next, and when Jess held her hand up to show off the glittering ring, Chloe applauded._

_Hugs were exchanged in a flurry from around the table, food forgotten for the moment. It wasn't until she heard Dean congratulate Sam that she realized he hadn't stood. At least, not until he had Sam's total attention._

" _Congratulations, Sammy. I'm really glad you're happy…" Dean's voice trailed off as he glanced past Sam somewhere._

" _Dean?" Chloe tried to discern what had fascinated him, but he didn't answer. He looked disturbed, and before anyone could stop him, he had pushed past Sam and was walking across the restaurant. He stood in the center of the room, turning and looking lost._

_Sam reached over and touched Chloe's arm with a silent question, and she shrugged._

" _Dean? Hotshot, what's up?" She crossed the distance between them and reached out, taking his hand to pull him closer._

" _It's nothing…" He muttered, but his eyes were still looking anywhere but at her._

_It didn't seem like nothing._

**402:05:00.34**

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being possessed by Brainiac and 10 being a bubble bath with Star City's favorite bachelor, being stuck in the trunk of a limo with a headache was  _definitely_  on the lower end of that spectrum. It was probably a 5, but at the moment, it felt more like a 2. Between the increasingly bizarre nightmares of domestic "bliss" with a hunter she was trying to forget and the weight on her shoulders of Fate's constant buzz in the back of her brain, Chloe was a little short-tempered. Having every pair of eyes on her when she'd first walked into the Ace of Clubs might have been a nice ego boost, but the subsequent case of mistaken identity did  _not_  help. This wasn't how Chloe had expected her date with Oliver to go. Taking a few risks to get a table theoretically would have led to some risky business in the bedroom later… she did not expect to be bouncing around in a trunk. In a brand new red dress that she really wanted to last.

The night had started off on a sour note to begin with, with Chloe's subconscious dreams filtering right into dialogue as she'd flirted with Ollie while in cognito. Saying she "couldn't exactly call him" her boyfriend had… not been the right way to start a date. And it had made her heart twist painfully when, for a brief second, she expected him to actually confront her and ask what exactly she meant.  _You know what you meant…_ A small voice reminded her that there was  _actual_  doubt there. She and Oliver had never really drawn firm lines, borders to operate between. It made it easy for her to justify those fantasies she'd harbored the last week... Dean's lips on hers, his hands wandering everywhere, and a domestic bliss that, frankly, scared her. It didn't feel like Dean. Not what she knew of him, at any rate. But, those dreams felt  _so_  real, they were growing more and more difficult to shake. It had gotten to the point where she was so tired when she woke up, she had to wonder if she'd been sleeping or hallucinating. She kept trying to ignore the guilty weight in her stomach every time she thought about Dean while she wandered the streets of Metropolis. The job application…. the attempted phone calls that kept going to his voice mail… she had  _not_  called Sam, though. That would have been true desperation.

But, when Oliver had just taken her Freudian slip in stride, Chloe found herself charmed all over again and thoughts of the Winchester had faded away.  _This_  was where she told herself she belonged. With Oliver.

Even in the back of a trunk. Confused for "The Joneses". Who had been killed.

This was definitely not how date night was supposed to go. Chloe wanted to get to the bottom of what happened to the real Jones couple, as there was no way it was anything good. If they could do that without bullet wounds, all the better.

As the limo jostled them around, Chloe winced and tried to at least look at the best of the bad situation. It could have been much worse.

_Dean could be in here, and you'd have to finally deal with the pink elephant that is his unrestrained attraction to you._ Wow, that was not a thought she needed right now. Especially since it was hitting a little too close to home.

"Y'know," Oliver's voice forced her to focus on the present man in her life as he sat up behind her and leaned towards her, those glib lips of his just an inch or two away. "When I said I wanted to spoon earlier, this isn't what I had in mind."

She scoffed, a smile playing at her features before she could stop it. Chloe settled from her side onto her back and reached up, fingers brushing through his hair. "We're lying alone together in the dark, ok? I think that counts for something." Her fingers caressed at the nape of his neck before she let her hand drop from the restless look in his eyes. It certainly didn't surprise her that he proceeded to flop down behind her again with a grumble.

"Yeah, you're probably right. This is definitely the most romantic of my recent kidnappings." He finally settled down and huffed beside shifted onto her side to compensate, bemused that, once again, they were in a possibly deadly situation and he was all mirth. "Hell of a way to spend an anniversary, right?"

_Anniversary._

Chloe's jaw went slack, and her brow knit as she replayed the word.  _No_ … she mouthed, trying to put the pieces together.

"Oh geez - " Oliver's hand on her arm, pulling her towards him so he could see the lost expression on her face was bad enough. "You forgot!" The squeak and crack of his voice would have been comical if Chloe's heart hadn't suddenly leapt into her chest, embarrassed, flustered and guilty.

"No!" Chloe protested as she forced herself to squirm back his direction until she was facing him. "No! I did not forget that it's been a year since we started doing…" She faltered, her normally quick wit stalling as it fought with her heart, which didn't know what label they even had. "Whatever it is that we're doing." She finished lamely.  _You're supposed to be a wordsmith, a lady of the lexicon, and you just misspelled the word chicken._ She shooed her internal insult away as she tried to gauge Oliver's reaction.

"Whatever it is that we're d…" He trailed off as the thought settled. Chloe's stomach was in knots. " _Wow._ " He chuckled, but she had a feeling it was mirth to cover that there was a very real part of him hurt by that. "You weren't joking around at the restaurant, were you?" He paused for a moment, tilting his head, hoping she'd answer. Chloe didn't, so he pressed on. "You don't know what to call me."

Chloe opened her mouth, but confidence wasn't exactly shining through. She didn't  _want_  a label. Labels meant commitment, and that was… a luxury she couldn't afford. Her dreams about another man in some domestic cloud nine just proved that Chloe's subconscious didn't even know what it wanted… the only thing she knew was that she and Oliver were a ticking clock that would eventually run out. "Not in so many words…"

"Okay!" His flippant dismissal might've been high-keyed and an attempt to be casual, but she could tell he was shutting her out. He was already turning away and was going to sit and stew in his own annoyance at this rate.

"Oliver!"

The plea apparently caught his attention enough to turn back to her. "We spend  _every_  waking moment together, right?" He sounded matter-of-fact, but… she could see that there was hurt underneath all of that. Oh, this was not what she wanted to have happen. She had just wanted to enjoy dinner and forget about all the complications of their relationship, 90% of which were solely thanks to Dr. Fate. If she'd never taken the helmet, Chloe hoped that she could have gotten to a better place with Oliver by now. "We said our I Love yous how many times, huh?" He soldiered on, and with every word, seemed more sure of himself. " _Several._ " A subtle lift of his eyebrows made her want to kiss that smug mug of his, but she resisted the urge. It wouldn't have solved the pink elephant  _right now_. Forget her dreams. Those would fade, like all dreams did. "What'd you call that?" He finished.

Chloe considered telling him. Telling him  _what_  their relationship was, what it meant to her.

And then her head hit the top of the trunk with enough force that she saw stars. She winced as pain blossomed across her crown. " _Ow_." She tossed a withering glance his way. "Can we talk about this later?"

Oliver rolled his eyes and shrugged, laying back again, crossing his arms and distancing himself from her. Oh,  _now_  he was pissed. "Yeah, no, I'd love to do this - " He couldn't help but send another parting remark her way as she tried to sooth the snakes in her belly. "If there is a later."

A great annoyed sigh left her as she laid back and stared at the roof of their Lilliputian confinement. "You're so dramatic…" She hissed.  _Pot. Meet Kettle._ She shook the thought away, defensive anger threatening to boil over into another admonishing remark. It wouldn't help to argue now, and it wouldn't change the fact that Chloe didn't have a good answer for him.

Things seemed much less complicated on the road, moving from motel to motel, following the breadcrumbs to a gingerbread house Fate  _swore_  was at the end. Things were uncomplicated when she spent a month tracking ghosts with the Winchesters. There was a clear goal, and in pursuit of that goal, a friendship blossomed. And things were crystal clear when she was in the swamp, trapped and stalking (or being stalked) a great behemoth that was the key to her infiltration of Flagg's team. It was all the other things in between that seemed to get so muddled.

Any further potential for conversation - or argument in this case - was halted as the car came to a stop. A few seconds later, the trunk opened, and the bright light of street lamps directly overhead kept Chloe sufficiently off-kilter as they were hauled out.

Moments later, the two were shoved into an unassuming apartment and Oliver's mouth had already begun to run.

"All right all right, enough of this." He pivoted, his hand at Chloe's side to guide her to him without thinking. "What'd you guys do with Mrs. Jones, huh?"

The ringleader of their kidnappers stepped in front of them both, appraising Oliver in a way that told Chloe that he didn't recognize Star City's most rich and famous.  _Thank God for small miracles._  "I was just about to ask you the same thing."

"What?" That had  _not_ been what she'd expected. If they didn't think she and Oliver were the Joneses… She tilted her head and turned to face Oliver, quarrel from before completely forgotten. "Am I the only one who's confused here?"

"We know you aren't the Joneses." The leader continued, garnering a sidelong glance from both of them. Of all the tables to suggest they take… "Who are you?" Concern began to creep up behind her confusion. This guy didn't look like he would believe that they were just a couple of lovebirds larking about in place of the Joneses.

"Yeah…" Oliver drawled, reaching down to tug the cuffs of his button-down closer to his wrists. "He's right." Chloe could sense the change in his mood, as well as body language, before he even made the verbal suggestion. "We should, uh… introduce ourselves."

With the barest hint of movement beside her, Chloe moved with a ferocity that Ted would be proud of. She pivoted to her right, away from Oliver. The thug beside her, who'd been all too thrilled to butt his Beretta against her backside, was dispatched with a quick disarm and elbow to his solar plexus. She heard Oliver throwing punches - and apparently one of their assailants as well - but, she could feel her mind tuning him out.

As she spun, another unwelcome attack was headed her way. He was too big to take down with a solid blow, and the few tricks she knew to down someone were for men who matched up to more Sam Winchester or Clark, not this guy. Her fist shot out, a jab connecting with his nose and mouth hard enough that she felt the pain radiate across her knuckles even as he backpedaled. She needed something, any sort of a weapon. Eyes scanning the room, Chloe caught sight of the bookshelf and bolted. A solid hardback novel would have to work in a pinch.

Footsteps and heavy breathing were the only herald she got to another impending attack, and she spun on her feet again, the hardcover book the perfect shield to an oncoming punch.  _I guess I can judge a book by its cover next time_ … The thought made her grin as she whomped the thug across the head with the tome, but she managed to keep her clever parlance to herself.

An arm around her waist, shoving her into the shelf roughly, wasn't what she expected as a reward for her sharp wit.  _Okay, I need to stop spending time with heroes, because these mental one-liners do me no favors..._  As books tumbled from the shelves behind her and pergo jabbed painfully between her shoulder blades, she barely had time to brace herself for the punch that was coming her way.

It never came. Instead, her combatant was whirled around and slung right over Oliver's shoulder, landing somewhere a few feet across the room. Their eyes met for just a moment, and he was off again, tackling another one of the quickly tiring mooks like a linebacker for the Metropolis Meteors.

Heart pounding, adrenaline fueling each synapse, her attention steered to the tiring goon in the corner. Geez, Oliver had chucked this guy halfway across this crappy apartment and he was still getting up. She stepped forward, bookless but certainly not helpless. She reached him just as he righted himself, and put that right cross Ted loved so much to good use. He was more agile than she expected, though, and she missed. She tried to adjust, pivoting to turn that cross into another solid elbow.

Imagine her surprise when a chair slammed into her back, breaking apart into several equally painful pieces to fall on. She landed on her stomach,  _hard_ , wind effectively knocked out of her with a grunt. A lungful of mildew-laden carpet smell wasn't exactly at the top of her list of smells. Forcing her hands up so she could brace herself and get to her feet, she paused as black chrome caught her attention. She picked herself up with a quick hop, and kicked the strewn handgun over Oliver's way. She didn't have the time to see what he'd do with it, she just needed it away from her own assailant. She shifted, tossing hair out of her eyes just in time to kick the same "gentleman" who had given her the gift of that chair across the collarbone. He went down pretty easily from the stiletto in his gut, and she bent down, picking up a table leg from the coffee table someone had crashed into.

Movement out of the corner of her eye sent another surge of endorphins through her body, and she whirled, table leg ready to strike across someone's temple.

The hand that caught her wrist was friend, not foe, and she tilted her head as Mr. Queen shot her an appreciative glance. Adrenaline let words bubble up to the surface as the two of them both practically sighed " _I love you._ " and locked lips. Hot-blooded and hyped up from the brawl, Chloe's body melted against his as he pulled her close. Firm hands kept her pressed against his body, his shirt buttons poking at her against her dress.

_This_  was what was so simple about her and Oliver. Right now,  _nothing_  was complicated.

And then, of course, they had to break for air, and the moment that happened, the two were simultaneously focused on the mystery surrounding them. Who the hell took the Joneses, and how were these guys involved?

Chloe's eyes rested on a billfold splayed open, face-down, on the floor in front of them. Her heart sank. Oh, that wasn't good…

She pulled away to go pick up the bill fold, just as she heard Oliver mutter "What the hell is that?" and make his way back towards the disturbed shelving. She crouched, fingers carefully pulling the leather up and flipping it over so she could see the inside.

FBI.  _Oh, you have to be kidding me._

"Mr. and Mrs. Jones weren't married at all." As she stood, Oliver held up a notebook, two small photos tacked onto the pages along with lines of notes. "They, uh, they were on a stakeout. FBI."

Chloe frowned. "I know." Oh, she hated to do this to him, but at least they hadn't really broken anyone's bones. She held up the billfold so he could see the shield and badge. "We just wiped the floor with their backup." Clapping the leather wallet closed, Chloe tossed it onto the couch behind her and scanned the room. "They probably couldn't break their cover until they found out how we were connected to the missing agents." Protocol. It was a pain, but for people like Flagg, it was how they survived. How they held onto whatever was left of their sanity.

A needling sensation told her to turn, to look to the west side of the room. She obeyed the instinct, and was rewarded with a pale blue crack of light coming from what she'd thought had been a wall, but was actually the dividing door between the joined apartment suite.

_**Chosen Girl… It comes for you…** _

Fate's voice thundered in her eyes for just a moment, compelling her forward. Oliver had fallen silent, probably uncovering another clue, but she was focused on the room that invoked thoughts of time spent in Flagg's custody, of Checkmate.

Chloe pushed the door open and stepped inside, the beat of her heart drowning out whatever Oliver was saying as he came closer. Her eyes were instead focused on the depowered backlight board.

"...From what the late Mrs Jones said, their cover was blown, which means Mr. Jones is probably in grave danger." Oliver finished as he stepped into the room behind her.

Chloe reached over, flicking on the backlight. "I think that's a definite." She muttered, eyes honing right in.

Oliver leaned forward. "What makes you say that?"

_**Nabu, Nabu! The throng intones! And she is trapped and alone!** _

_**Omega unites…** _

Chloe swallowed as Fate's voice finally faded, images burned on the back of her eyelids of a sea of people, bowing over and over. The word of Fate upon their lips… "Call it a hunch…" She motioned to the Omega symbol burned into the skull on the film before them.

"The Darkness…"

It was coming. They needed to find Mister Jones before the Darkness found him.

**401:01:00.23**

_It was here. The black cloud that had settled over Dean's head the night before had finally brewed into an honest storm of brooding and melancholy. She knew him too well; the moment they'd left his mother's house and Sam had been short with her, she had a feeling the brothers had had another inevitable confrontation. And to be fair, Dean_ _**was** _ _acting strangely._

_She pulled a couple of beers from the fridge and made her way over to the couch, sliding down next to him, brandishing the bottle in front of him._

" _Hey, my favorite." He turned to glance her way, and his eyes practically lit up. There was a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. She could tell that the moment he locked onto her, though, he seemed to relax all over again. "Is this payback for me knowin' your super-fru-fru coffee drinks? I know too much about you, so now you're gonna repay the favor?"_

_Chloe just rolled her eyes and popped the cap off of her own brew. "Yup. And now you've uncovered my microbrew machinations to make you feel better. Guess that means you're stuck with me. Cause, y'know, otherwise, I have to kill you."_

_He chuckled a little, but it was a paltry response. His smile faded completely as he stared at the beer in his hand, picking at the label absently. "Sammy and I… You know we don't get along."_

_She shrugged and sat up a bit so she could grab his hand. With an arched eyebrow, challenging him to make her stop, she raised his arm up and behind her. The ploy worked, and he wrapped his arm around her while she spoke. "Well, you two haven't really spent a lot of time together since he went to school. I mean, you're here, you work at the garage, and ever since we moved in together…" She sighed. "I mean, I just think maybe you two don't know each other all that well anymore. After your dad died, the two of you both changed and you haven't tried to reconnect." A non-committal hmph was all she got in response, and she poked him in the rib in return. "Oh, c'mon, don't go all Deanderthal on me now. You're so much more than you give yourself credit for. It's the whole reason I'm with you. You don't think Sam can see that?"_

" _No, no, you're probably right." His hand reached for hers, twisting it away from his rib but nearly spilling his beer in the process. "But, I mean, I've been a crappy brother. Crappy son, crappy everything -"_

" _Woah, hey -"_

" _But I can fix things with Sam. I can make it up to him. To everyone."_

_Chloe turned to face him, but he was back to staring at his beer bottle again. She reached out, fingers caressing his jawline until his eyes finally met hers again. "Hey. Talk to me. What's wrong? You've been, like, 5 degrees away from Dean Winchester lately."_

_His voice dropped to a low gravelly mutter, a tone that sent chills down her spine. "This isn't gonna make a lick of sense to you. But I kind of feel like I've been given a second chance. And I don't wanna waste it."_

_Her thumb brushed against his lips as she tried to decipher exactly what had him so shaken. "You're right. That doesn't make any sense." The pads of her fingers tickled over his five o'clock shadow. "But if I understood everything about you, hotshot, then you wouldn't be so interesting."_

_The corner of his mouth quirked upwards, and his arm around her shoulders dropped further down to the small of her back. One of his calloused hands slipped undereath the flimsy material of her tank top, pressing her closer, those green eyes of his focusing on her with an intensity and hunger that reminded them of their first liasons. Being pressed against the hood of his black impala in the night, ignoring the sounds of wind whistling through trees..._

_Dean's lips met hers. Her skin flushed hot with lust and sensation. With just a moment of foresight, Chloe took the opportunity to move his beer onto the coffee table before he forgot about it and gave them a lap of malt. Her timing couldn't have been better, because no sooner than she heard the glass hit wood, he tugged her up onto him. Her knees rested on the cushions on either side of him, settled as she relished in his hands wandering across her back._

_It felt so new, as if he was taking it in for the first time, taking_ _**her** _ _in for the first time. He deepened the kiss and tangled his fingers in her hair, gentle and attentive, like always, but she could feel the desperation. She didn't know where it was coming from, but the moment his hips shifted beneath her, rocking up, seeking her out, she didn't care. Thoughts about the shift she had in a half hour were pushed away at the promise of warmth and sensory overload. Her hands wandered down from his shoulders until she brushed against the definition in his muscles underneath his T-shirt._

_Wanting to return the favor, apparently, Dean tugged her hair a little more so he could expose her neck to him. His lips found her pulse easily, trailing hot kisses along it up to her ear. The little chuff he gave as her hips displayed their appreciation just about made her melt against him. He grunted - or maybe chuckled - the fog of lust was a little too heady for her to tell, and she felt his touch ghost down her back to the hem of her shirt. In one smooth, calculated movement, she felt the material hike up and up until it caught under her breasts. He yanked a little more, trying to pull it up and over, but she couldn't help but giggle in response._

" _Easy, Hotshot…" She breathed, grinning as she sat up a little more straight and tugged her tank top off for him. Those warm palms of his were immediately on her skin, brushing along her sides._

" _Holy shit, you are so beautiful…" He breathed, eyes dark with lust but also… genuine awe. As if he'd never seen her like this before. To be fair, he had her feeling a bit the same way. Why did it feel like they hadn't been with each other… ever? That was absurd. "Dean Winchester, you are a lucky sonuvabitch…" He appraised with a rakish smirk. Casually, he took her shirt from her and tossed it across the room before giving her another longing survey._

" _Where is this coming fro-_ _ **oh…**_ _" Chloe swallowed the word along with a gasp as his hot mouth suddenly covered her nipple, tongue laving across it with all the skill she intellectually knew he possessed, but was never physically ready for. Goosebumps accompanied a full-body shudder as she felt his hand splay across the center of her back, urging her body closer to his. Heat flooded between her legs, intense and impossible to ignore. She wanted him_ _ **badly**_ _, like a thirsty woman searching for water in the desert. She rocked her hips against his again, pulling another grunt from him even as he kept his attention on her. The bulge in his pants was far too tempting to ignore, especially with those noises._

_Of course, the alarm clock in their bedroom started blaring, effectively reminding Chloe of prior obligations. Her hand had just reached the hem of his pants, but it would have to wait. "I am going to be late…" She groaned as she pulled back, fingers immediately to his chin, trying to urge his face - and more importantly that tantalizing mouth - upwards. He acquiesced, somewhat, dragging his mouth up slowly, pulling her closer. They left hot trails of sensation down her neck, his hips bucking again. That mouth of his was going to get her in trouble, especially with the fact that her top was now halfway across the room. "Dean… no, I mean it, I have work…"_

_His teeth grazed against her collar as his kisses trailed lower. "Be late…"_

_Chloe chuckled and rolled her eyes. "I can't…" Oh, he wasn't going to stop. She pulled back a little, her hands slipping down from his short hair to his chin, forcing him to look up and to hopefully get his lips off her skin. Her cheeks were flushed, her skin was sensitive as a live wire, but she knew she really couldn't afford another night off. "Dean, I put off my shift last night, but if I don't show up, Lana will have my head."_

_He was all hands even as she extricated herself from his arms and stood. She quickly retrieved her tank top from across the living room and slipped it back over her head. Dean wasn't far behind._

" _Right… Lana…" The name rolled off his tongue as if he barely recognized it, but she figured he was being facetious. "Because you work for…" Chloe paused at her closet to pull a blouse and new jeans. She turned to grab her badge, but was no match for quickdraw Winchester, who snatched it off the peg on the wall and looked at it. "The_ _ **Isis**_ _Foundation." Chloe caught the double-take as he saw her picture, then held it up while mirroring her own dorky smile. "This is cute. Were you, like, twelve, when you started?"_

_The side-eyed, unimpressed look she gave him only made him chuckle harder. She swiped the badge back and brought her outfit to the bed so she could get dressed. "Very funny. You know I've been working there since before I met you."_

" _And how exactly did we meet?" Dean's arms encircled her from behind, his lips dragging across her skin. "C'mon, I wanna hear you talk about it."_

_Chloe paused, thinking back. "It was storming… and I…"_

_**Lightning. The forest. Mud and rain, falling down a hill.** _

_**The Countess.** _

**401:23:08.47**

Oh, her head hurt. No, retract that. It  _throbbed_. A pulsing, hammering pain across her temple that spread to the back of her head. The ghostly touches, the false calm and sense of warm surrender from her dreams completely faded as she was assaulted by the stark, hostile surroundings. Instead, she found herself replaying what she could remember. Reaching Club Desaad, Oliver sneaking in through the window...

Chloe had been tied up and hoisted up more times in her life than she could count. Of course, the last time, she'd been upside down. It had been long enough since she'd found herself held up by her wrists, toes barely, frantically trying to touch the ground in hopes of staving off muscle strain and exhaustion. Her arms ached and burned as her toes danced awkwardly against the smooth tile of the old church. That alone would have been bearable, but the steady trickling of icy rain, chilled by the weather and the fact that night had fallen hours ago, made her shudder involuntarily and gasp for air. The staccato little hiccups her voice made completely against her will, as well as the way she shivered and shook, only exacerbated the aching of her body.

She needed to find a way out. She needed to get back to Oliver.

Her eyes threatened to flutter closed as another cold shiver went up her spine. A tickle at the back of her neck made her grimace, but she refused to give in.

Until she opened her eyes all the way and realized... it was no longer night. In place of the nocturnal unknown, the annex was illuminated by a warm yellow glow, one of early morning.

Had she fallen asleep?

The distinct sensation of another presence in the room made her work and pivot herself just enough.

"Chloe." Relief washed over her, as well as another emotion, one she didn't want to name, as she saw Dean step out of the shadows. Was she dreaming again? She'd only just awoken, maybe... but, no. Dean here was all leather jacket and denim, as if he'd stepped out of the Impala, and not that bizarre dream world she'd kept drifting in and out of.

A smile graced her features as she tried to get a better look at him. "Dean."

He wasn't smiling, like he had been in her dream. His jaw was set, and he stormed forward with all the force of the hunter she knew him to be. He was lightning in a bottle, ready to snap and kill with the efficiency of a big cat in the savannah, even though there was no one in sight.

He reached her, hands raised up as he untied the ropes around her wrists. She caught a heady dose of leather and whiskey as his body pressed against hers, practically enveloping her as he worked to free her. "You sure know how to get yourself into trouble, Blondie." He groused as the ropes finally came free.

The moment her feet touched ground, she expected to fall, her limbs dull, achy, but he had her around the waist and helped her to the floor with ease. "I could say the same about you, Hotshot." Chloe chuckled breathlessly, taking solace in a few moments of uncomplicated comfort while her legs recovered. He held her steady, hands all up and down her arms as he tried to warm her up, looking her over.

"I tried to call, couldn't find you. I wasn't about to let you go, not this time." He pulled her close, wrapping her in a hug that was desperate, breathtaking for all the right reasons. She'd never been truly hugged by Dean, and now, suddenly she was wrapped up in the very essence of contact with him.

"I'm okay," She breathed, surprisingly weak for what had felt like the average kidnapping. She glanced up at him, and found herself staring into those green, intense eyes that sent a shot of lust right through her. The dreams had made her face the temptation that was Dean Winchester, those kisses she'd only experienced in Gotham, in privacy and isolation. The conflict she normally felt was gone, and instead, all she could think about was the way his hand had shifted from her shoulder to couple her cheek.

"Bullshit. You're comin' with me. I shoulda made you come with me in the first place, because I want you, and I'm not givin' you up to some rich dickbag who didn't even come for you." Chloe shuddered against him, the gravel in his voice raking across every sensitive nerve that she tamped down at every interaction. She'd always kept it at bay when she saw him, but each subsequent conversation made it easier to give in.

"Dean..." She breathed as he pulled her closer. This was... very forward, even for him. He wasn't pulling her close to protect her, or to rescue her. She knew what this was.

"Chloe, I know what I said. I know I said that Sammy and I weren't important to you, but...  _you_  are. To  _me_." The words felt like honey on her ego and her soul, which surprised her more than anything else. Why would he need her? And why was that... so important? "Come with me. I'm gonna take you away from here and I will show you just how important you are." He smiled, roguish to the last as he closed the distance between them, lips brushing against hers as he breathed. "What was it you said in the swamps? Yeah, I think I'd rather drape you across my back seat, too..." He was so close, she wanted to kiss him so badly, to just give in... "Just one night, Chloe... You'll never think about Queen again. Just give in. Tell me how much you want me..."

Chloe froze.

She pulled back, looking him over as foreboding washed over her. This wasn't right. Dean knew how important her relationship to Oliver was, even if he didn't understand it or appreciate it. "No…." She forced herself to stand. "This isn't right… you and I talked about this. Oliver's not a factor in whatever…" She motioned between them. "This is. Why would you push this?" The difference between her dreams and the reality before her were not what smacked her in the face, but rather the fact that he was pushing it on her. Impulse was one thing: this felt like calculation.

"Chloe!" She turned, teetering on her feet a little as her stomach roiled with conflict and shame.

"Oliver..." She breathed his name like a prayer once he saw his face. She rushed to him and he took her in his arms, calming her writhing insides as he held her close.

"Thank god," His voice in her ear sent a shiver down her spine, while making her legs weak. He was  _here_ , she was safe now.

Pulling back, she glanced behind her where Dean had been, only to find the cathedral's annex bright and sunny, but empty. "Ollie, something's wrong with Dean. We have to find him - "

"Yeah, I know. That's why we have to get out of here." Concern flickered across her features, and she turned to face him. Like so many times before, she shifted her weight to her heels; confused, suspicious.

"What do you mean 'You know?' I've… you've never met Dean. I've never even mentioned him - "

Oliver's hand on her cheek derailed her thoughts. "Let  _me_  run away with  _you_ this time." Was she hearing him right? "No more disguises, no more darkness."

Chloe balked. Sure, a part of her wanted to just… escape this burden that Fate had thrown onto her, onto  _everyone_ , but… that was just it. It wasn't her own personal crusade, there were others involved, others at stake. Did he think that she wanted him to just give up being Green Arrow?

"I would never ask you to do that." She searched his face for something, a chink in that leather armor he wasn't wearing, yet always seemed to bear. But, he was sincere. He was  _asking_  her to run away with him. "Why would you ever think that I would -"

"It's okay. We don't have to try so hard to be heroes. We're just human." The words were honey, but she knew that there was poisonous venom underneath. Oliver had given up being Green Arrow once, but she had taken him to the brink of death to get him back. He wouldn't just give it up. Not now. But, he was pulling her towards the door. She remained firmly rooted in her place, even though there was nothing comforting about it. The way his fingers brushed along the inside of her wrist before he simply kept walking left a physical ache, but she couldn't just… follow him. Not like this. "There's plenty enough people to fight the good fight without us." Oliver stopped and turned to face her, hand outstretched, motioning her closer. "C'mon." Why was he doing this? There had to be a reason? Were they being watched? "C'mon, Chloe, we can be together." His fingers twitched, beckoning her closer, but she couldn't do it. It felt  _wrong_. "Just take my hand."

The foreboding she'd been trying to keep clamped down wouldn't stop screaming at her that this was wrong.

"C'mon." He urged again, barely a whisper, the kind of private exchange that immediately reminded her of the intimacy they shared when she'd returned.

_**Will you sacrifice your sanity to save the ones you love?** _

Oliver wouldn't ask this of her. This was wrong. It felt wrong.

The world around her felt… flat, deceptive…

_Like an illusion. The ones that Fate shows me..._

Chloe squared off, body language shifting to show that she felt threatened, and wasn't going to just go along with whatever "Oliver" said. "Who are you?"

A sharp pain struck at her temple, and she flinched, flashes of gold against the back of her eyelids. Eyes fluttering, she struggled to focus on Oliver… but it wasn't him. She could tell.

"Wait a minute, what is this?" Her eyes darted around, the warm golden light flickering to midnight darkness, then back again. "This isn't happening…" This was all an illusion. Nabu's name was on the tip of her tongue, waiting to call him out, but pain along the base of her skull caught her off-guard. She pivoted without thinking, and found herself face to face with… "Sam?"

"You know, it's okay to just admit that you're jealous." The puppy dog eyes and the sincere voice may have looked like the Sam Winchester she knew, but the blatant nastiness behind it was hardly his style. Light flashed across his face, as if he'd just been hit with an x-ray, giving her an ominous view of a smiling skull. But, it was gone just as soon as it arrived. To say she was unsettled was hardly a fair statement. She certainly hadn't planned on mind games, but at least last time, with the Countess, she could have confided in the boys. Not that she'd done so…

"You're not real either." She muttered as she looked him over.

"I get it. This is tough." Sam stuffed his hands into his pockets and shrugged, sauntering closer to her. Muscles tensed, she fought the urge to put Ted's training to use. Realistically, she knew that the odds of taking Sam down again were slim on a  _good_  day, and given how sore and weak she felt… well, combat was out of an option. The only fighting she'd be doing would be to fight her impulses. "All of this? The whole being Watchtower, dating the billionaire who's trying to be invisible? Being the best friend no one expects to stick around? I mean, you're already miserable because you can  _see_  that Lois has replaced you when it comes to Clark. I get it." Chloe swallowed the shame that flickered across her features at the mention of Lois. "The only reason she's not telling you all this is because… well, she needs to be there for Clark. And you've kind of accepted that already. It's the rest of it that's still sinking in. It would be way easier to be like me." He rested his hand on his chest with a deceptively friendly smile. "Like me and Dean. That's what you want, isn't it?" Chloe swallowed as she tried to find the answer to the puzzle in front of her. "You wish you could just pack up and run away. Spend your days in the Impala, hunting things. You're envious of what I have. The freedom. You don't know what it's like to have  _family_ , because your dad hardly paid attention and your mom is all locked up in her own head. Dean and I? We're always gonna have each other."

"No…" Chloe countered. "No, I've only ever been happy that Sam and Dean have each other. I wouldn't try to come between that." Emphasizing their names gave her the sense of distance she needed. This was  _not_  Sam, which meant Dean and Oliver hadn't been real, either. This did not feel like the real world. It was too malleable, and felt a bit like walking through a fog. "I'm not jealous that they have lives on the road. It'd be great to have, but I have responsibilities here. The Winchesters know that."

Sam simply gave her another quizzical stare.

"Wait." The light switched on, the gears turned. "Envy…" Chloe mused, pointing at Sam before glancing to where Oliver had been only moments before. "Leaving with Oliver, that would've been… sloth." She backpedaled as adrenaline surged through her veins. The virtual compendium she had at her disposal wasn't the reason she knew these. No, this was good ole time religion. "And Dean's kiss… that would be lust." Her eyes finally met the dead ones of the faux Sam Winchester. "You're trying to tempt me."

Sam threw his head back, the triumphant laugh echoing around them thanks to the acoustics of the building. "Oh, good job, Chlo. It's just easier to think that someone else is trying to make you hear these things rather than to admit that it's what you  _think_. Every day. You gave up  _everything_  for your friends, but Dean and I? We don't care. We'd take you in without a second look. And you'd give anything to do that."

Chloe scowled at the accusation. "Never." She hissed.

"No, you're right, cause what you really want is the best of both worlds." Dean's casual flare was normally a comfort or annoyance. But, his hands were on her biceps, caressing as his lips moved against her bare shoulder. She didn't flinch from surprise, but found herself instead melting against him as fantasy blurred with reality.

"You don't want to have to pick." The heady scent of Oliver's cologne flooded her senses as his lips brushed against her ear on her other side. His strong arms wrapped around her waist, but somehow didn't shove Dean out of the way. "You'd rather just be able to…"

"Bounce…" Dean huffed against her shoulder, grinning. "Between whichever one of us you feel like."

"Always feel sated…" Oliver's fingers caressed her stomach through the flimsy red fabric of her dress. "That's the adult equivalent of being fat and happy, isn't it?"

"Well-fucked and walking on air," Dean chuckled, the vulgar statement somehow all the more appealing as his grip tightened on her forearms, tugging her a little closer. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

It was so tempting…  _so tempting_ …. but she knew it couldn't be real. She glanced Dean's way. "Gluttony, huh? Is that what you think will win me over? That I don't have self-control?"

He smirked. The skull flashed beneath his skin again, sending a shiver of revulsion down her spine. If there'd been a doubt in her mind about the validity of the world around her, it was gone now. She extricated herself from the grip of both the man in her fantasies and the man in her reality, turning to face them. The growl that tore out of her throat would've made the real Dean Winchester proud. " _Get outta my head."_

The illusion flickered and broke, sending conflicting images until they finally dissipated. The arctic chill assaulted her senses, combined with the freezing rain still trickling down her back. Her arms were bound again. She'd been thrown right back to Go without collecting her $200.

"It's the heart, actually." The voice just behind her made her grimace, a shiver wracking through her from the cold, not to mention the creepiness. "The window to the soul." The voice slid around to her other side, and she couldn't help but steal a glance his way. Desaad…. "Both mankind's greatest asset and his weakness."

_**He is the Polluter of the Body, Chosen Girl…** _

_**He marks them for the Darkness…** _

She felt her toe slip against slick, once-polished slab, jaw quivering as the chill reached her bones. It didn't change the vehemence in her voice, or the way her blue eyes sharply challenged him. "So what, you're just gonna put me through the seven deadly sins house of horrors and convert me into one of your dark denizens?" Desaad simply shifted around her from behind, but she kept calm, turning as she could to face him. He sidled up beside her, nothing but the dripping of rain and the scuffling of her feet to accompany her. "A little on the nose, don't you think?"

"Oh, you might balk." His voice might've been a kitten's purr, but she knew there was nothing but predatory game cat in him. "But it's worked for me for a very…" Cold touched her belly, and then dragged upward until she saw the glint of the misshapen, macabre knife in his hand as it rested on her collar. "Long time." She felt that fear surge forward, but clamped it down. She had to keep her emotions in check; this guy drank it up like a fine wine otherwise. "Most of them are quite easy to turn," He continued, flippant, enjoying her discomfort, "But, others require a little persuasion."

Her feet suddenly hit the concrete, heels feeling the cold all the way through while her arms screamed with relief as blood rushed back to them. He'd unchained her, but the fact that he was still right in the middle of her personal space bubble did not leave her feeling warm and toasty. " The visions tend to cut to the heart of the matter." Oh dear god, he talked a lot. But, if he was going to keep giving her ammunition to use against him, she wasn't about to stop him now. "Sin is a liability I exploit." Chloe's stomach turned at the notion of what other people he'd tortured with their own deepest desires. "You are more vulnerable than you think."

_**Chloe Sullivan… I cannot disguise your heart from the Darkness within.** _

_There is no darkness, Nabu. I know what I have to do, you tell me enough._

_**Remember your sacrifices...** _

Chloe shifted, standing to face Desaad as Fate's voice whispered in her ear, echoing in her head and trickling down her spine. If Desaad had been using her thoughts against her… how long would it take before he found what she'd hidden in there? She'd kept the sliver of Nabu's essence buried more ornately than Indiana Jones looking for the Ark of the Covenant…. but the longer she remained in Desaad's clutches, the more time he had to find it. "You know what I am." Chloe swallowed, slightly jarred by how spot-on his assessment was. Anger began to well up at the sense of violation. What, was he in her head all the time? "You know what I'm capable of."  _Oh, you bet your ass I do._ Chloe blinked as he took hold of her wrist, pulling her to him while he rested his serpentine blade in her palm. "Kill me. Your friends will all die if you don't."

She paused as that anger swelled at the threat of harm to those closest to her. Clark, Oliver… oh, god. He'd pulled Dean and Sam out of her brain… they could be in danger, too.

Chloe clenched her teeth, ready to fight. The knife was so tempting, she knew she could slice at his throat, maybe even thrust the blade right into his heart. How  _dare_  he threaten her family -

Wait.

"Tryin' to get me on wrath now, huh?" She smirked, another obstacle down. "Nice try, but I'm stronger than that."

"Yes, you are."  _Diana_ …. Chloe buckled, clutching the blade even tighter as she tried to tune out the voice behind her. "You have embraced the Amazon, become a paragon of the Woman. Athena's wisdom, Hera's confidence, the strength of Artemis, and the capacity for love worthy of Aphrodite." What game was he playing, exactly? Diana's voice, her own bolstering words, were only bringing Chloe's confidence to the surface, a conviction that she  _knew_  she wouldn't hurt him. "I have taught you well. But, you and I both know that the Amazons do not frown upon bloodshed when necessary."

"I will not take a human life. Period." She muttered through chattering teeth. The Amazons had a different moral code. Chloe knew she would never have been able to fit in that way.

"Of course. Because you are a woman of your ethics. Good. Stay strong. Such stalwart confidence. Hera would bless you." Diana's presence stalked closer, pausing until she was right over Desaad's shoulder. Her eyes met Chloe's, forcing her to give her attention even as she tried to ignore that this wasn't the Amazon she knew, this was a phantom. "And you have taken the best of my people, and the best of what your own teachers can provide, and you have excelled. You have even taken the skills of those hunters, men who do not do the hero's work, and you're  _better_  than them." Diana chuckled. "You are truly a sight to behold, are you not? Chloe Sullivan, the Watchtower, she who would wield Fate and bend it to her will. You  _are_  a hero, greater than all others who have come before you. You can best him at his own deception." Chloe kept her eyes straight ahead, locked with Desaad. Oh, she knew she could beat him. She knew she could end this, she just had to have enough time to outsmart him.

"Pride." Recognition flickered across her features; the blade shook ever so slightly.

"Hubris. It's a fatal flaw." Diana's voice had left her, but she still stood beside her. But, to her left, the very rugged features of Carter Hall stepped out of the shadows and into view.  _Oh, Desaad, you are good…_  "We all have it at some point or another. We get cocky. It's the whole reason you're such a control freak about the life you live now. It's why you seem to have it in your head that you can have a job in Star City watching out for your vagabond pals and still somehow be Watchtower." The stab at her ego cut deep, the threat of having to give up the Winchesters  _or_  her friends, unable to straddle the two worlds… she  _had_  to handle it.

"It's why we grossly overestimated our independence." Her own voice, her own  _face_  stared back at her over Desaad's shoulder, devious and playful. The garb was the same white suit she'd rescued Oliver in, as if she was some sort of digital messiah. "That's why we didn't ask for help.  _That's_  why we vanished without a trace. We were too  _proud_  to ask."

"Shut up!" Chloe snapped, even as Desaad's hands lowered from the knife, as if begging for mercy. But, she  _knew_  that smug bastard was just waiting for her to crack. But she  _wouldn't_.

"Too  _proud_  to face the fact that the world moved on without us!" Her mirror image pled. "That we weren't  _needed_! That no one cared that Chloe was  _gone!_  If we don't have our pride, then what  _do_  we have?"

"I said  _enough!_ " Her voice shook and tore like gravel through the soundscape around them. The rain kept hitting her back, Desaad kept looking on, smug as ever.

"All that effort you spent spent freeing yourself from your old identity, to suddenly give everything over for something  _lesser!_ " The mirror image cried at her from behind. "For a  _relationship!_ "

Chloe turned to face her shadow, the smug, superior phantom that contained all of Chloe's fears, her regrets that she had done so much for Oliver and yet he'd kept throwing it all away. And now, here she was again, throwing  _everything_  away for him and she'd  _already lost him_.

But…. no. She wasn't doing it for herself, not even for Oliver.

That was where it had started, but the world had grown so much bigger. It wasn't about her, it wasn't about  _Oliver_  anymore.

Desaad could play on her weaknesses, but he really didn't understand her. No one did. She didn't know who she was, but she knew that pride wasn't all that was left.

Chloe threw the blade aside, defiant, unwilling to compromise as she stared him down. "Go to hell."

"No, my dear." A sudden flash of pain and sensory overload blossomed behind her eyes, a tinge of golden light in her pupils. "It'll be here soon enough."

_Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up—here._

_**Nabu! Nabu! The throng intones…** _

"Sadly," Desaad's voice pulled her from the vision Fate was threatening to flood her consciousness with. "You have become as useless as that blade." He reached out, fingers brushing against her bare skin, sending an unpleasant shudder through her body. "Tell me, Chloe. When was the last time you had a good…" He snaked his fingers around her bicep. "Hard…" His grip tightened. "Cry."

And suddenly, there was a rush of air and she was standing in the middle of Watchtower. The arms around her were ones that she'd never been happier to feel, in a  _completely platonic sense._

" _Clark_."

**400:06:45.00**

The sun was setting. It was hard to believe that the day had been so… tranquil, given the night before. As Chloe stood on the sidewalk outside of her Watchtower, waiting for Oliver to turn off those machines he liked to complain about paying for, only to get stuck with a phone call from an irate Lois Lane. Chloe had fended off her cousin earlier; however, Oliver would never be so lucky.

It was for the best, though. For all Oliver had tried to help, she wasn't going to figure out who exactly Chloe Sullivan was these days until she'd had more time for herself. Girlfriend was a label she could shoulder, sure, but anything beyond that… she just didn't know. She wasn't truly Watchtower… she wasn't "Laura Grant," the doe-eyed sleuth that would sweep into Star City's Register and catch the newest scoop.

Ugh…. the register job…

Chloe's phone buzzed in her pocket and she flipped it open to see -  _surprise, surprise -_  another reminder from the unusually helpful HR department at the Register to turn in the offer letter if she wanted the position.

Thoughts of Dean's lips on her shoulder went another throng of longing through her, and her knuckles went white as she held onto her cell tighter. Desaad had known where to strike… and he'd had plenty of ammunition. Mortars and cannons worth. All of it true, too… those fantasies about Dean couldn't have been from out of nowhere. She knew that every time she thought about him, spoke to him, or even left a voicemail, her thoughts were wavering further and further from platonic. She would have loved to blame him for kissing her in the first place, but this Sullivan knew how to take responsibility for her own transgressions. This was her mess, and she needed to clean it up. Somehow.

She had no idea how to do that.

The truth was, in all her discussions with Oliver about her identity, she couldn't be completely honest with him. At the  _least_ , Dean and Sam would need to remain were not a part of her life here, and they didn't ask to be. They had their own journey, their own path to follow…

_**You cannot save them all, Chloe Sullivan. You have chosen your Fate.** _

Nabu had set her on a very specific path. She knew that sacrifice was all she had in her future. To be honest with Oliver would just mean having to tell him about the  _true_  price she'd paid. It had nearly killed her to lie to his face and say she wasn't leaving when she knew that she would. It was only a matter of when.

She had to focus on saving the world from this Darkness, and then from there… she assumed Nabu would take her.

But, that wasn't all. Again, the Phantom Sam's taunts and faux-sympathy had struck _so_  very close to her heart. Cupid couldn't have had better aim. Dean and Sam had  _simple_  identities. Brothers. Hunters. Winchesters. That was it. There was no ever-growing void where former roles were getting dumped. In part, Dean was occupying her thoughts so much because she knew that there would be significantly less pressure if she'd traveled with them. Sure, it could get messy - she had  _no_  illusions that she would keep her hands off him, or vice-versa - but at the end of the day… Dean was going to be there at the end. If that meant sooner rather than later, it would hurt less for everyone else. Everyone in Metropolis was still guarded around her, half-expecting her to bolt. Why shouldn't she encourage the notion?

_Back in Black_ blared as her phone shuddered violently in her hand, startling her. She knew the ringtone, but it had easily been a few weeks since she'd heard it. She and Dean had hardly spoken; a choice that seemed to be somewhat mutual, but she couldn't honestly say if either of them were happy with it.

"Dean?"

"You actually picked up." Dean chuckled, sounding a little weary, but otherwise in a remarkably good mood. "Figured you were actually avoiding me on purpose at this point." The jab was certainly playful, but it made her heart twist in a way that reminded her that it… probably wasn't. "Sammy's been trying to call you since yesterday." She frowned, stepping away from the building and down the sidewalk a few paces.

"Yeah, um," She winced, nibbling on her bottom lip. "I was a little tied up. I found myself on the wrong end of a serial killer - "

"'Scuse me? Can you repeat that? Because I'm pretty sure you just said 'a serial killer'." Chloe could all but imagine Dean screeching the Impala to a halt and spinning his wheels the moment he started questioning it.

"Woah, woah, easy, before you go to red alert and shuffle through your arsenal, I'm  _fine_. Unfortunately, kidnappings to abandoned buildings don't normally come with a complimentary phone call."  _But, being worried about me is quite adorable and exactly the distraction I don't need, thank you._ Of course, the fact that he was the one who had called  _did_  have her attention. Even though they were clearly on better terms, facetious and smoothly sidestepping around their racier thoughts, Sam was normally the one to call. "Not that I don't appreciate the concern, though. But, why was he trying to reach me? Typically, he doesn't call just to catch up." In fact, the last time he'd attempted that, he was hurting. Badly.

"We were actually on a case. He'd been hoping you could help." She closed her eyes, shame and regret written all over her face. It didn't matter that she'd been kidnapped, she prided herself on her ability to be all things to everyone. Her identity was slipping further and further away, and now she couldn't even help the ones she felt sympatico with. "But, uh, keep your digital nose out of it, we got it covered now. Before you get all curious. Last time I let you look into anything like a hunt, Baby nearly died."

"If I recall, that trip had its perks," Oh god, that flirtation was out so fast she couldn't even catch it.

_Negative, Sullivan, retreat. To quote the Blue Meanie, you're advancing the wrong way._

"Yeah, but you're in Metropolis, right?" There was a hard edge to Dean's voice, one that killed the buzz she'd accidentally given herself. "I think we both know the next hunt wouldn't go as well…"

Desperate for a change of topic, she soldiered on. "So, do I get to ask what you hunted, at least? I've been actually trying to assemble a… cheat sheet in case we run into anything supernatural." Chloe cast a glance upward as the brilliant orange sunset began to fade to blue. "You two are more out of pocket than I am."

"Look, I don't always want to be available, okay?" Dean groused, but the awkward moment seemed to have passed. "Sometimes, I like knowing Sam can't call me every time he needs extra-shine conditioner." She rolled her eyes and shook her head a little. "Anyway, we found a Djinn. Well,  _I_  found him, and then he thought since I was so goddamn pretty, I must taste like rainbows and Fluffer-Nutters."

"I didn't realize Djinns ate fluffer...nutters…" She trailed off, still drinking in an unbidden image of Dean trying to make a sandwich with marshmallow fluff and peanut butter.

"They don't. Well, if your wishes involve fluffer-nutters, then I guess so, but not for me. They feed off the things you want until they drain you dry. Sam found me, though, so a few brews and my four hours, I'm good to go." At least she could sleep soundly knowing that the brothers had gotten out of the scrape even though she'd been completely unavailable. Of course, it also reminded Chloe that less and less people seemed to actually need her. If this was Fate's way of preparing her for the inevitable, he could've at least made it a little less disheartening.

"I'm really glad you're okay." Chloe sighed. "I wish I had been available to help."

"Nah, but the next one, if he says 'jump,' you say 'how high?' because you two get all research-y together and it speeds these things right up."

She bit back the urge to tell him that he could keep calling, too. It didn't just have to be Sam. But, she knew that was dangerous territory. "Yes, sir." The street lamp next to her flickered on as its light sensor triggered. "So, what exactly did the Djinn drain you with? I mean, what kind of secrets does the daring Dean Winchester keep locked away?"

"Wouldn't you love to know."

"I  _would._ "

"I am a man of mystery."  _Oh, for crying out loud…_ "And some mysteries you're just never gonna figure out. You can't hack into my brain."

Chloe chuckled, a smug little smirk gracing her features. Oh, if he only knew the things she'd been up to. Not that she planned on ever re-using that very invasive and problematic technology again, but she had to admit it had been fascinating from a programming standpoint. "That's true. I'll admit that I'd love to get a glimpse of what makes you tick, but, if I understood everything about you, hotshot, then you wouldn't be so interesting." She froze as that sentence rang a little too comfortably.

"What?" The odd tone in his voice wasn't lost, but she couldn't quite place why the whole exchange felt like deja vu…

"Okay, Oliver Queen's girlfriend, I have finally vanquished the beast that is your cousin's capacity to talk my ear off…" Oliver's voice as he left Watchtower and joined her on the sidewalk made her jump, and she glanced back at him, smiling even as her heart pounded.

"Hey, I have to go." She turned her back to Ollie, but she knew that the time for candid conversation was gone. She was nearly into full-blown panic mode with flashes of Jimmy's angry and jealous ramblings haunting her for the first time in two years.  _You just committed to Oliver that your life would be with him and the others. The Darkness is coming, and you're_ _ **flirting**_ _._

"That's cool. Sam and I were thinkin' of swinging back east, we could probably stop in Metropolis in the next couple of weeks - "

"I don't think that's a good idea, Dean." She rattled off quickly. Chloe had gotten all too accustomed to giving difficult orders and bad news, but for some reason… this one was more difficult than she thought it would be. "Things are ramping up here. There's something big happening, and I don't want you two in the middle of it." She could hear Dean take a breath, ready to protest, and continued on. "In fact, I won't be able to help you guys for a little while." Her voice caught. "I'll let you know when things have cooled off." Silence on the other end. She pulled her phone back to make sure the call was still connected. It was. So he just wasn't speaking. Her stomach roiled as she tried to quell her conflicting emotions. Desaad was a real danger. He'd almost gotten her. What if Sam or Dean was thrown into this mess? They had their own problems. She took a deep breath, steeling herself, steadying her voice. "Okay, Dean?"

"...Yeah." Dean cleared his throat, but his voice sounded thick. "No, it's cool. I get it. You got your boyfriend and your family to take care of, so you just do that and you don't worry about me or Sammy. We got this."

"I really am sorry - " Her phone beeped in protest for her as he hung up, and she swallowed. Gritting her teeth, she fought the urge to cry until it finally faded.

"Hey, Chlo, what's up?" Oliver's hand on her shoulder was enough to make her look up at him, reminding her that she was doing the right thing. "Everything okay?"

It wasn't. But, how could she tell him that? "Just reprioritizing. With Desaad surfacing, that's a lot to worry about."

His big, brown eyes were no comfort to her even as he slipped his arm across her shoulders and steered her away from the building. "Oh, sheesh, the Darkness? That I'm not worried about. Now, your cousin's  _wedding_ , on the other hand…."

Whatever concerns about Lois's wedding Oliver had, Chloe didn't hear them. She was too busy holding her phone in her pocket, as if she could somehow take back what she'd said.

_Way to go, Sullivan. Now Fate's not just taking them… you're pushing them away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Oh my GOD, I HAVE NOT ABANDONED THIS FIC, I AM SO SORRY EVERYONE. I swear, I've been working on this chapter, slowly but surely, the last six months, and I kept wondering why it was taking so freaking long until... well, I finished and it was twice the length of the previous chapters. So, as penance for being gone so long, you get a DOUBLE-LENGTH CHAPTER. Also, I had been trying to power through the last of my Once Upon A Time fic, which I'm almost done with, and I just wrapped up a huge commitment in another hobby, so this fic is gonna keep moving faster now. I suspect it won't take me months to get you chapters now, but we'll see. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter! I got several follows and reviews while you were all patiently waiting, and I really appreciate that! Please review, if so inclined, but most of all, enjoy this canon weaving that is this chapter. The series is finally starting to earn its M rating in more than just language and violence now, too. Also, I know the end of this is probably going to have some of you screaming at me, but I swear it will ALL WORK OUT. LOL.


	4. Losing the Rook for the Pawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: Set during Supernatural 2x21 (All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1) and Smallville 10x15 (Fortune)

**366:08:32.46**

_Thump. Thump-thump._

Chloe whimpered. Her entire world seemed to be in a bubble of hazy, muted sound, punctuated by a deep throbbing pain that began somewhere in her frontal lobe and just kept blossoming across her entire head. Like a radio tower, she felt like she was blearily broadcasting to each nerve ending to be as difficult and injured as possible.

Unfortunately, she didn't have a clue  _why_  she felt as if she'd been run over. An attempt to crack her eyes open only revealed darkness and new questions. Where was she and why was it dark?

Something was poking her in the back, right between her ribs, and from how sore it was the moment she shifted, she had a feeling she'd slept on it. Whatever it was and wherever  _she_  was. Blindly, she tried to reach out in front of her, but couldn't find purchase on anything in front of her. Where  _was_  she?

The world suddenly pitched for her as light flooded her immediate surroundings. Her legs flopped down to the ground, and her stomach rolled as her body caught up to the fact that she had apparently been laying down… With… her legs up in the air?

"Chloe?" The voice above her was familiar, but she couldn't see anything through a white haze. No…. wait… compiling… A veil. She'd been wearing a veil. With hands that were swollen and stiff, she pushed the veil back over her head and glanced up at the tall figure in the doorway.

"Clark?" She breathed, although it only seemed to grind her skull against a cheese grater.

He gave her a once over before reaching his hand out to clasp hers as she fumbled with the gossamer on her head. He lifted her to her feet, but instead of his usual grace, the two of them sort of staggered until she finally found her balance. Of course, given the fact that she was apparently in heels, not having much balance made perfect sense.

"What'd you do?" Every word coming out of Clark's mouth was probably a monumental effort if he sounded so slurred, and it was just as much of one for Chloe to understand them. She opened her mouth to reply, but instead had to tamp down on a wave of nausea heralded by the taste of gym socks.

The glint of metal on Clark's hand caught her attention. That looked like a wedding ring…

A  _wedding_  ring. Chloe grabbed his finger, tugging him closer as she looked down at her own attire, then up at him, the world coming into focus devastatingly quick. She slowly let her gaze move from his hand… to her hand - oh no, another ring - and then up to his face.

"What did we do?" She muttered, dread filling her senses.

And why didn't they remember anything?

**366:09:05.01**

Two mocha java chip double-shot lattes, one Elvis impersonation, one marriage certificate with Chloe's personal John Hancock, and apparently a stolen armored car later, Chloe was already ready to call it a day. Regretfully, a quick glance at the clock on her monitor told her it was only 10 AM. She tipped her coffee cup back, trying to will the hours to go by a little faster, only to find it empty.

Wonderful. Even her caffeine addiction couldn't help her here.

On the other, non-ringed hand, the further they got from their personal foray into guy comedy territory, the less time Chloe and Clark had to annul this particularly nonsensical mistake of theirs. Not that she could even begin to understand how the two of them ended up hitched. That was a book she'd closed a long time ago. Lois and Clark were clearly meant for each other, and she was… well…

Chloe tossed her flimsy empty coffee cup into the trash can and brushed away thoughts of strong jawlines, whiskey and gunpowder that warred with the smell of leather, expensive aftershave and martinis. She had one pseudo-romantic crisis. She did not need to complicate things further with another. In fact, she'd actually been a little relieved that calling Oliver's phone had gone to voicemail. She had no idea how to explain if she had somehow gotten married to Clark…

The fact was, the last twelve hours being a black hole of bad decisions had only scattered the cadre of wedding VIPs and it was Chloe's job to help bring them all back together. She just didn't know what they were going to find.

Tess had been unusually helpful, and also unusually worried about Emil's arrest. To be fair, Clark and Chloe were worried, too, but there was something about the way Tess had fidgeted while knocking back pain killers that told her it had nothing to do with Chloe being back at Watchtower. And even if it had, Chloe had given her the green light to continue working, only for Tess to tap her feet and occasionally check the clock while they waited for programs to run.

It was Emil. It had to be. Tess wasn't remotely concerned that Chloe couldn't reach Oliver on his phone, or that Lois had sent a sucker punch via text that had Clark completely distracted. But the moment they realized there was no record of Emil's arrest in the Metropolis PD's database, all bets were off.

The only logical conclusion Chloe could come to was that she wasn't the only one with a missing love interest in this cooky rom-com.

"Chloe, Watchtower's found something." Speak of the devil. Tess's voice pulled her from idly staring at the coffee pot across the room and bemoaning how sore her feet were in white boots that were about half a size too small.

Brushing blonde hair out of her eyes, she stood and strode over to the screen Tess was drawn to, scanning the different files as they appeared. "Wow, that you did." Chloe skimmed the names and faces of the personnel files in front of them. "These are from the same casino the armored car took its payload from?"

"Yes." Tess toggled to additional information with a smooth grace that reminded Chloe of herself. The thought left her with a strange sense of loss and yet pride. She could see herself doing this again; building up heroes into the roles they would need to have… which meant Watchtower was no longer hers. "The employees are as dirty as the money. They have criminal records a mile long, so unless Fortune doesn't do background checks, I'd say it's deliberate. We should check out the casino. I'm starting to think Emil is really in trouble."

"Oh?" Chloe rose an eyebrow, bemused. "I guess you don't have much faith in his ability to jailhouse rock."

Tess flushed slightly, but otherwise remained steadfast and relatively stoic.  _Diana would have found Tess perfect for the Amazons._ "Emil might sing a mean Elvis, but he can't shake his hips out of this one." The redhead paused, contemplating the scenario.

"You did good." Chloe reached out to touch her shoulder, hoping to bolster her. "I'll get Clark and we'll head down to Fortune. See if you can dig up anything else on that armored car. I have a feeling there is way more going on here than we're aware."

"You got it." As Chloe turned to leave, Tess's next question caught her off-guard. "There anything else I can check on while you're with Clark?"

She turned slowly. She had begun to trust Tess, but it wasn't like her to pry. "Like what?"

"Like that ring." She gestured towards Chloe's hand to prove her point. "I mean, you don't really think you and Clark got married, do you?"

She laughed a little, shaking her head. "No, but, I'm honestly trying not to think about it."

"Well, let me find the chapel, give them a call."

Chloe rose her hand up to stop her. "No, that's not necessary - "

"If it turns out you're in the clear, I'll shoot you a text. If not, well, that will stay between you and me until you can get back here with Clark." Tess sounded genuine. Had she really changed so much?  _Sullivan, you've been 50 shades of paranoid today._ "I don't want to hit you with a 2 ton weight if I don't have to, I promise."

Her slender fingers reached down to toy with the ring.  _Well, it's not like you married Dean, so what are you worried about_? The thought came so unbidden and was so surprisingly she blurted out "That'd be great, thanks" and bolted for the elevator before she let her thoughts dwell further.

She had enough to worry about. She didn't need to add the fact that as the morning had worn on, she found herself thinking about the elder Winchester. Chloe punched the button to one of the lower floors of the building, where she'd kept a small room of clothes and supplies she could change into. Leaning against the cool metal of the elevator's walls, she fished out her cell phone from what was admittedly a cute white clutch for something probably gleaned from a costume shop.

_4 missed calls. 2 new voicemails._

The alert hadn't dropped off since that morning. She hadn't actually toggled over to listen to the messages; but given that both had Dean's name in bold, she had to put it aside for the moment.  _Because you can't help them both…_  She reminded herself. She'd had to make that commitment after that all-too-close brush with DeSaad. This Darkness was too close. If it meant she had to let the brothers ride around on their own, she was sure they could handle it. Clearly, they'd been doing so long before they met her.

But she still couldn't figure out why Dean would have called her so many times. And left messages.

Chloe was far from proud when the elevator's doors chimed and she shoved the phone back into the clutch, messages still untouched, a lead weight in her stomach.

The room at the end of the hall wasn't even what Chloe would call a "furnished" apartment, but it had a duffel bag with a few extra outfits, the weaponry Flagg had issued to her during their tenure, and a small twin-sized cot. When she'd first arrived back in Metropolis, Chloe had honestly expected that even if Oliver had earnestly wanted to resume things, Tess would have taken ownership of Watchtower. So, she wanted somewhere to stay that was hers, even if it was hardly "home". Smallville was out. She couldn't exactly stay at the rubble that once was the Talon and the Kent farm was a little too heavy on the love bug. In Metropolis, her only options were to use some of this building she owned or… stay with Oliver.

After months of privacy and solitude, Chloe had grown accustomed to it. With only her thoughts, there was a chance that Nabu would impart another gem, another trinket of knowledge that would put her one step closer to meeting the destiny he had given to her.

It took the better part of a minute to finally unlace and unclip the white corset around her waist, but once she did, her entire body shuddered in relief. Her bosom was freed, even though the cold air around her covered her skin in goosebumps. She'd take the goosebumps over feeling as if boning was etching itself into her skin any day. She tilted her head back and pulled off the cheap, itchy faux-pearl choker around her neck, a sigh escaping her lips. Next came the gloves, which she tossed unceremoniously across the room. Glancing down, she grimaced at the cheap white tulle tutu - what the  _hell_  possessed her to get a  _tutu -_ and tugged. Velcro ripped and off the tulle went, drawing another hum of approval from her lips.

Chloe's toes throbbed impatiently, and she bent down to finally release her precious feet from the boots that, while adorable, were just torturous. She stole a moment of girlish delight as she felt the bare skin of her breast brushing against the nylon white stockings she wore, thrilled she'd kept her flexibility. Oh, what a sight she was. In nothing but white panties, white stockings and garters -  _really_ ,  _Sullivan?_ \- and white boots, she was a pin-up model waiting to be drawn.

She could practically feel the hands easily slip around her waist and up to her bosom. A strong grip, tugging her against a firm body that filled her senses with the heady scent of leather and gunpowder. His fingers could reach those garters with ease, freeing them with a stinging yet satisfying snap that reminded her she was alive.

She could all but feel Dean's lips on her neck…

Chloe's eyes snapped open as a bolt of guilt hit her and the fantasy she'd been distracted by was pushed from her mind. Her skin was gooseflesh, and even though she was alone in this compact haven of hers, she found herself wrapping her arms around herself, covering her bare chest.

_Get it together, Chloe._  She told herself, trying to ignore how flushed she felt - not to mention self-conscious. Not even Oliver knew this studio was Chloe's home away from home, but now she was worried he'd walk in any minute. It wasn't even a new sensation, either. Ever since she'd come back to Metropolis and the honeymoon period of romantic bliss had worn off, she'd expected him to find out about the unspoken attraction pulling her away from him.

Once she'd been taken by DeSaad, she had been  _positive_  he'd figure it out. Even if she'd cut off all communication with the Winchester brothers for almost a month now. She'd made her decision. She had to live with it.

So why did her stomach twist so uncomfortably every time she thought about Dean? Why did she want nothing more than to call him, find out where he and Sam were, and just leave? It was clear she didn't fit in here any longer. She didn't know she was except that she was no one. She could be a chameleon. Today, she was Chloe Sullivan, but tomorrow she could be Agent-Whatever-Hair-Band-Dean-Felt-Like or Diana Wayne or whatever else would get her into the thickest mess of trouble she could find.

Chloe took a deep breath, then let it out, slow and measured. It was a nice dream, but it couldn't be her life. She had to stay here. Until she ran of time. Then… well, then it didn't matter anymore.

All she knew was that this cauldron of mischief and romantic bliss was going to bubble over eventually. And when that happened, Oliver would be gone. Chloe would be alone, with no one to keep her company except Fate. And he'd been too quiet lately…

She re-prioritized. Tilting her head from side-to-side, she stretched her sore neck and quickly rid herself of those stockings and garters. Minutes later, she finished zipping up her black leather pants and shrugged her leather jacket on. The moment she secured the last of its snaps and finished brushing her hair out of the outrageous curls she'd given herself, she felt more focused. Grounded.

As she grabbed for her gun belt and her cell phone, she chose to ignore Dean's name again and swipe over to call Clark.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she turned to leave, the steeled expression staring back at her reminding her just what she looked like.

_A hunter._

**366:17:52.27**

The sun was setting. The view from the barn loft was exactly what she needed to clear her head while she waited for Clark to finish cleaning up the house.

The breathtaking oranges and golds of a Kansas sunset used to be comforting, a sign of a peaceful night and warmth through her bedroom window while she read  _Tales of the Weird and Unexplained_  again. Those hues were now a precursor to a visit from Nabu, complete with the kind of headache Zeus would have complained about.  _Well, you do sort of have a god in your head, so, it's not that editorialized of a headline._

The pun would have made her chuckle if she hadn't been distracted by a buzzing in her pocket.

If Chloe hadn't actually seen Tess's name flash across the screen, she would have honestly forgotten about their conversation that morning. Given the fact that it was almost 6 PM, Tess most likely had answers about the half of a marriage certificate practically burning a hole in Chloe's pocket. Her blood pressure spiked at the very thought.

But, she needed to know. Even as she hovered over the menu button, she already knew that she was going to make that decision. Regardless of the outcome, she had to know.

_You're in the clear._

_Mrs. Queen._

Oh.

_**Oh.** _

Chloe tried to swallow, but her throat had suddenly closed on her.

That meant… Tess meant…

She was married to Oliver.

Her blood pressure spiked, panic threatening to completely overtake her for a moment.

_Are you sure?_  She managed to type back.

_Positive. Congrats._

Oh god, she was  **married.** To  **Oliver.**

Just like that. No memory, no ceremony, no  _proposal_ , just… marriage.

The big M. The thing Clark and Lois had been building up since what felt like decades.

Chloe wasn't even committed to a particular brand of cereal in the morning, and yet now she was committed to Oliver.

Would he know?

No way. If Chloe had one half of the certificate, then Oliver had the other half and he hadn't had time to call the chapel.  _Unless he did it in between showgirl numbers_ , she thought sarcastically. She just had to remind herself that his phone had been off the entire day, and he'd told her as much when she found him at the casino.

Even though she knew she should have felt guilty, it was actually comforting her to know that Oliver probably had no idea. It meant she had time to figure things out, to broach the subject the right way.

_You know, the right way being where you tell him you can't marry him as you're about to find permanent residence with padded walls._

Chloe brushed the guilty barb aside. The fact was, she wasn't married to Clark, and until she told Oliver, she was not going to let the situation change. She had known exactly what price Fate was going to exact from her, and that meant Oliver would not be in the long-term plan. She just didn't know what the endgame for Fate would be. He'd been perfectly comfortable pushing her back into Ollie's arms, so much so that now she was hitched to him. But, he'd practically shoved her into the back of the Impala before that, and she just couldn't figure out  _why_. Was it supposed to end here? Was she going to spend the rest of her days with Oliver? If that was the case, why was Dean's face the one she kept seeing in those flashes of memory at the end of her karmic journey?

She could do it, she reasoned. She could make the decision for everyone else right now. She could just delete Dean's messages and forget he'd called. It would mean officially burning that bridge, because if she started deleting, she wouldn't be able to stop, but… it would close that door. Chloe would be secure.

It was the logical thing to do.

She navigated to the menu screen for her voicemails, staring at the hunter's name, wondering what he could possibly need from her. It was probably help for a case. Easy to delete, easy to forget…

But, her thumb pushed the play button without her permission anyway.

" _Look, Blondie, I know you said you were busy, but I need you to make an exception here._ " The grit and tension in his voice grabbed Chloe's insides with a vice grip.  _"Call me back. Soon as you get this._ "

That was it. That was the first message. After two calls, no less.

Chloe pulled the phone away from her ear. She couldn't stop staring at it as if it had personally betrayed her for not reminding her sooner. With just a few terse statements, Dean's problem had suddenly become her problem. Her skin flushed, hands clammy as she tried to decipher what precisely had terrified her. Maybe it was that Dean was terse, sure, but he wasn't…. scared? Was that what it was? She hadn't truly heard worry like that from him.

Chloe dialed to save the message, then continued to the next one.

" _Where the hell are you? I'm not just calling for giggles, okay? I need your help. It's Sam._ " He paused. Chloe's throat closed and her heart clenched painfully. What was wrong with Sam?  _"Chloe, he's missing. And I need you to help me find him. It's not like last time. Sunnyside Diner. About 25 miles from this joint called the Harvelle Roadhouse, it's out in the freaking middle of Nebraska offa 183. "_ There was a dull thunk that she could tell was him slamming the Impala's door, and she winced. He loved that car more than anything. Oh god, what had happened to Sam?  _"Dammit! Call me back. I'm callin' Bobby."_

Chloe's world was falling out from under her. As the voicemail system notified her that it was the last message she had, she reached out, bracing herself against the barn door. The alluring, false comfort of the loft had abandoned her.

What could have happened to Sam that would make Dean actually go to her for help? He didn't  _ask_  for help. That wasn't how Dean worked.

Chloe glanced down at the ring on her hand, a glaring reminder that she'd been off playing blissful bride-to-be, Dean had needed her help.

Fate didn't need her here. She hadn't felt even an inkling of where she was supposed to be since Fate had helped her out of DeSaad's clutches. The Darkness could wait a couple of days while she helped Dean.  _Screw_  the festivities, there wouldn't  _be_  a wedding if the Darkness came for them, and Dean and Sam were Hunters who'd crossed her path too many times for her to feel like they weren't somehow connected. She had been willing to blow him off the last few weeks, to commit herself to a life in Metropolis, but while she'd done that, they'd needed her. And they didn't have her.

_Why did you think you could make this choice?_ She found herself asking, even as she opened her email on her phone, searching through her messages until she settled on the reply she'd received from her recruiter at the Star City Register.  _You honestly thought you could just cut them out? But, what? You'd keep Diana and Bruce on your short list? Why? Dean and Sam are just as needed as they are._ She hit the reply button, sliding open her phone to her keyboard so she could quickly type a reply to ask if the open offer for the reporter position was still open. She just needed the cover for a little while.

_You know this isn't for a little while._ She ignored the way her mind couldn't help but remind her that this wasn't an altruistic endeavor. The fact was, without Sam, Dean was a loose cannon. The week in the swamps had shown that.

It was time to stop pretending that she was just going to be Oliver Queen's commitment. She was running out of time, and if she just let herself do that, more people could get hurt. Every day.

So, by the time Clark headed up to the loft to talk to her, she'd solidified her cover story and recited it with ease.

She was going to find new heroes. She relished mentioning Diana, although not by name, and it felt as if maybe, just maybe, she could convince herself that everything was okay. That this was a completely altruistic endeavor with her love of journalism all wrapped up in a neat bow.

She couldn't help herself from thinking that it might be the last time she saw Clark. And she was lying to him.

But how many more times could Sam and Dean call for help, only for her not to answer?

**366:21:32.28**

Chloe could still hear the laughter echoing through Watchtower's walls. She savored those sounds, closed her eyes and imprinted the images of Lois and Clark laughing, swaying against each other as if they both knew where the other began and ended.

It was a blessing she didn't know she'd asked for. Those last few moments with her family, her friends. Happy. Content. They didn't need her, and that was exactly what she'd needed to see. She hated herself for wanting to leave, but she knew the alternative. Every hour she spent in Metropolis was one hour she didn't have to help Sam or Dean. It was one hour less she had in control of her own faculties. It was one hour closer to her Fate, to be trapped in her own mind; a fitting end for Moira Sullivan's daughter.

But, at least this way, she could leave with a clear conscience.

Sort of.

Her half of that marriage certificate practically burned a hole in her pocket as she stepped off the elevator and outside. She took the stairs one at a time, hands clenched into air was cold, bitterly so. Instinct told her to stuff her hands into her pockets, but she knew the cold was all she had. Her cheeks stung, but it helped clear her mind.

Harvelle Roadhouse. Off of 183. She'd routed the directions to her GPS, and while it would be a long haul, she'd make it. She'd make it for them.  _For Dean._

"Hey." Oliver. Her heart sank to her stomach, tension locking her muscles. It was foolish, naive to think he wouldn't have followed her. She hadn't exactly been stealthy. She'd hoped that he would take it a sign that he was waiting for her back at his penthouse. After all, she'd gotten really good at 'Dear Ollie' letters. But, now that he'd found her, she didn't have much other option than to turn around. "Where you runnin' off to so quick?"

Chloe swallowed, brushing hair out of her eyes as she tried to cover the guilt that had already plainly shown on her face. "What're you doing?" Her voice wavered, but she tried to smile through it. "I…." She forced herself to play the role she still had until she was on her way to Nebraska. "I thought we were rendezvousing at your place later."

Oliver didn't reply. The way he looked her over made her squirm, and she knew she couldn't meet his gaze. A long, agonizing moment passed between them before he spoke. His voice was casual, but resigned. "You're… leaving again, right?"

Casual or not, the hurt was raw; he  _knew_  that she was leaving, and she knew it was killing him. As she tried to meet his eye, grappling for some sort of excuse, a way to avoid the inevitable, nothing came to her. The only thing she had left was… the truth. "Oliver…" She breathed, words already welling up.. "I - "

"S'ok." That threw her off, but she didn't have much of a chance to react before he kept going. "I can read between the lines." Chloe's hand slipped into her pocket, clutching at her phone. She'd been  _so_  careful to keep the Hunters out of conversation. She had made sure that that life and this one never came into contact with one another. And he  _knew?_  "Chloe, I never expected you to sit up in that ivory Watchtower the rest of your life. I know better than that." He thought this was about being Watchtower, about how trapped she'd felt.  _Oh, my god, why can't I just tell him?_ "I have something, uh…" Oliver fished into his pocket, then held out a folded, crisp piece of paper, as if that would explain everything.

She recognized it. Even before she forced her hand off of her phone and out of her pocket so she could unfold the firm certificate, she knew what it was. Her eyes grew warm as she pulled her own torn certificate from her other pocket, fitting the two pages together until it was there in honest calligraphy. Overwhelmed, she forced a smile through the tears, looking up at him. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn't just break his heart. This wasn't how things were supposed to go.

"I dunno what you're thinking, but I hope it's not that you're gonna run off without your husband." She opened her mouth to reply. Maybe honesty was the only policy here. "You didn't take the job in my home town for nothing."

A little choked laugh left her lips. If he kept talking, it was going to drive her insane. He pulled her close, his lips meeting hers with a desperation that she knew all too well. Every kiss seemed desperate, like a plea for her to stay, just a little longer. She couldn't even enjoy it anymore.

"Let's get out of here."

It was surreal. As he pulled her away, Chloe didn't have a back-up. She couldn't think of how she was going to get out of this one. Unless she told him the truth.

_But, you can't tell him. He wouldn't understand._

**366:22:59.21**

"Okay, my obscenely paid pilot says we should land in Star just after 1. It's a little late, but hey, just means we can start our honeymoon off right." Oliver took a seat on one of his many plush couches aboard his private jet, but his words couldn't seem to pierce the fog around Chloe's thoughts.

Once the initial shock had worn off, and Chloe had come to accept the fact that she'd just followed Oliver to his jet blindly, she'd been forced to reassess. She hadn't quite figured out what she was going to do. It had been a moment of profound weakness that she'd let herself get pulled so far from her original course, but it was gone now. Now, she had to contemplate how she would handle the issue.

Nebraska was a helluva lot further away from Star City than it was from Metropolis. So, she'd told herself she was using the opportunity to do the digital digging that she hadn't had time to do all day. She'd tried to track Sam's cell phone, then Dean's. That had proven to be a good decision, too, as Dean's signal wasn't in Nebraska. His GPS was just outside of a nowhere town in South Dakota, some place called Cold Oak.

Her blood ran cold, and a shiver ran down her spine.

"Are you seriously working right now?" Oliver's voice once again tried to break her concentration, but Chloe couldn't seem to tear her eyes from her laptop screen. "Chlo." He stood, making his way over to her, but she ignored him. "Jesus, you okay? What's wrong?"

Something about Cold Oak…

_Rain. It's raining._

" _Dean…" Relief. He's here. He found him._

_There's mud beneath her feet, soaked through with blood and rainwater. But, it's so dark._

_She turns towards the voices she hears. Where is this? No people, no others, except for Sam and Dean… and someone else. Bobby. She knows him, but she can't place why she does._

_**You cannot change their Fate, Chloe Sullivan.** _

_What?_

" _Sam, look out!"_

Chloe's computer left her hands and hit the ground with a sharp thud and crack. The screen immediately turned to a kaleidoscope of pixels, and she jumped up, backing towards the wall.

"Chloe!" Her eyes remained transfixed on the screen as it flickered and glitched, but she didn't really  _see_  it. Instead, her mind looped the look of terror on Dean's face that was now haunting her. " _Chloe!_ " Oliver came into view, his hands firmly on her shoulders. The pressure was firm enough, but she still expected to feel the rain soak through her clothes. Sam… he was in danger. She'd all but felt the knife as it struck him in the back. Her stomach lurched and swam; her knees were weak. She had to stop it.  _Right now._ Screw this false marital bliss. Forget Oliver, forget Star City. She had to  _save Sam_. She had to get to Dean.

"I-I need…" Her mind raced.  _Sam. Dean. I need Dean. Oh god, I need Dean. He's losing it._ "A minute…" She managed to stammer, somehow extricating herself from Oliver's grip and staggering to the bathroom. With her new husband's voice still ringing in her eyes, she shut the door behind her and latched it without a thought for how ridiculous or disconcerting she might look.

The four flimsy walls of the otherwise sturdy aircraft were no comfort to her, but they were at least a barrier between her and Oliver. She couldn't explain, she had to think of  _something_.

"Why would you show me that…" She whispered, well aware of the culprit. There had only been one force in her head to show her the way, and now he was practically torturing her with images that screamed " _You made the wrong choice!"_

Gold blossomed in her vision, a blinding pain striking at her temple again. Her eyes squeezed shut, the luminescence too much for her retinas to bear. Breath abandoned her, her chest tightened, but through all of that, she couldn't stop her heart from racing as she feared for Sam and Dean.

"You need to stop looking so far down the rabbit hole at things you're not meant to see."

The pain vanished - no, numbed, but was still thudding at the base of her neck, dull and muted. The voice she knew. It brought no comfort, only disdain and frustration. Inhaling through her nose, trying to keep her temper, she forced her heavy eyes open to locate Fate in his favorite costume: Carter Hall. "You…" She paused as the taste of iron pricked on her tongue. A warm trickle down her mouth from her nose. Blood. Again. "You need to stop using Carter. I know you're not him, and it's not exactly  _comforting._ " She spat as she wiped her mouth clean on the back of her hand, taking in her surroundings. A facsimile of the Brownstone, complete with cloth still over the table for the JSA made for a nice set, but that was all it was. Chloe knew if she pushed hard enough, fought Fate hard enough, she might be able to knock over those flats and reveal the bare darkness pressing in on her from all sides. But, she didn't want to, and she was beginning to get the impression Fate had stopped playing the passive navigator.

"Chloe, I didn't stay here with you because I thought it would be cozy." Carter's boots thunked, one measured step after the other, as he strode towards her. His gait, the way his hands were stuffed in his pockets… she could practically see Dean walking closer. How much more was Fate going to toy with her mind before this was over? How much was going to constantly remind her of the way Dean Winchester had made himself completely unforgettable to a woman who was pretty sure she'd forget everything in the end? "You have a part to play, and I need you to play it."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" That pain at the base of her skull was beginning to grow more present, but she forced herself to focus. "I told you last time, I would not just sit here while you gave me what pieces you  _think_  I needed to know. It's time you come clean with me."

"You can't possibly know everything you'd need to. You have to trust me."

" _Why the hell would I_ _ **trust**_ _you?!_ " Chloe snapped. "You've given me literally no incentive to do that since you pulled me away from everyone I care about, dragged me through  _hell_ , stranded me on an  _island full of Amazons,_  and then threw me back at Oliver while throwing me towards the Winchesters!" The Brownstone flickered around her. Whether it was because she was fighting the illusion or if because her head was beginning to pound, she didn't know. " _Just tell me where I'm supposed to be!"_

"You are exactly where you need to be." Carter sounded patient, but she wasn't surprised. If her temples had only stopped throbbing, she probably would have been able to find an old axiom to match how patient Fate could be. "But, if you don't stop fighting me, fighting what I am inside you, it will rip you apart long before I am prepared for that."

Talk about the end. Chloe's fury cooled for the moment, knowing that he had dangled her future in front of her. They had never spoken about it, only danced around the subject with that one image burned into her mind. "I don't think you're prepared for  _this_ conversation, either." Her words were clipped, measured, cool and authoritative. "I have played your game. I've moved my pieces, I've checked the kings and taken the queens off the board altogether. But you will not make me sacrifice one of those perfectly capable rooks for a knight that isn't even in danger of being captured." Chloe squared off, leveling the kind of lethal look only very few had seen. "So, you better tell me what's happened to Sam. To Dean." Her time away with those Amazons had given Chloe a lot; confidence and intimidation were only two of the skills she'd taken from Io and Epione. "Take me to the Winchesters, I know you can."

"Oh, Chloe…" Carter shook his head, casual and with a melancholy that made him sound like an old brother-in-arms, and not the fury of all time and space in thousands of years with only a sliver of that somewhere between Chloe's synapses. Hands that she imagined as callous brushed against her shoulders and down her forearms, as if to soothe her. Unfortunately for Fate, he'd picked the wrong ghost to do that. The better one would have been -

"I can't tell you where they are, baby. Believe me, some things are better left unknown."  _Mom._

Chloe recoiled from the voice that practically sang to her, clawing at her soul to just give into her emotions, to let her be comforted and no longer curious. Fate had tried that once, in the swamps outside of Gotham, coaxing her closer and closer to Dean while forcing her to hunt Grundy. If he thought she was going to be lulled by that same old lullaby, he had another thing coming. "You're not my mom. Fate, you show yourself as you are or you  _let me go_  so I can take Oliver's jet to Cold Oak!"

"Chloe, you're on the path that you've chosen. This is where I said you would go." Again, Fate looked at her and spoke to her with her mother, but she would not be dissuaded.

" _No_ , you've told me what you want me to hear. You've given me what information you  _feel_  like sharing, and I am not asking, I am  _demanding._  Let me see the Winchesters! Let me go to them!"

The Brownstone crumbled around her, brick by brick, and a terrible quaking nearly knocked her off her feet. The very sound of it threatened to overwhelmed her…

Until the blade pierced her back.

It was raining again.

" _No!_ " Dean…

She felt the knife twist, then wrench free. Her knees went weak, her body wracked with agony, and she sank like a stone in water.

Chloe glanced over.

"No, Sam!" Dean slid to a stop beside her, but reached for someone beside her. Sam.

Synchronized, chained to the younger Winchester's movements, she fell forward with him, only she had no Dean to catch her. Without thinking, she hugged herself, willing the pain away. How or why she could do it, she didn't consider.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sam." Dean tried to rouse his brother, but Chloe felt the ache of loss. Sam's head drooped against Dean's shoulder. Those normally bright eyes were closed, almost peacefully. "Sam! Hey! Hey, hey. Come here. Let me look at you."

She couldn't feel Dean's desperate attempts to stop the bleeding, but she still felt the loss as it trickled down her back, soaking her clothes. She gripped tighter, as if she could close herself off from the connection she'd begged for. "Hey, look at me." A sudden, wet cough assaulted her, forcing her forward. She caught herself in the black mud, but her fingers sank, clawing into the darkness. "It's not even that bad." She could hear Dean repeating himself, empty comfort. "Sammy? Sam!"

"Stop this…" Chloe whimpered, emotions and physical anguish ripping through her, an onslaught she couldn't compartmentalize fast enough. But she knew. She  _knew_  what he was showing her.

"Hey, listen to me. We're gonna patch you up, okay? You'll be good as new. Huh?" Dean's pleas had grown more desperate. "I'm gonna take care of you." His words echoed around her. Those words had haunted her. In her dreams, in the place between dreams… " _I'm gonna take you care of you._  I've got you. That's my job, right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother?"

"Sam…" She choked, overwhelmed. She could feel the loss, nearly a physical blow as she heard Dean screaming for his brother. His lifeline. "No… Oh god, no… Fate…" Chloe buckled, head bowed as she closed in on herself, face covered with muddy hands. " _Goddammit, Fate!_ _ **This isn't fair!**_ " The howl echoed, so unlike the woman who had wept silently beside Jimmy Olsen's body. The same woman who had faced her death with dignity and almost flippant disregard.

But this wasn't a silent loss, an inevitable result of her choices.

This was  _rage._

" _Why_?" Chloe growled, pushing herself to her feet as the anger swelled, spurring her on. Somehow, she found herself standing upright as Dean kept screaming for his brother, rocking him as if he'd lost his child. She'd only known Sam and Dean for a few months, but the loss was enough. It had tipped the scale. She would not sit through another second of Fate's manipulations. " _You let him die, Nabu!_ "

A crash of thunder, and there he was. Gold flooded before him, a path that cut through the dark storm, but she refused to look away. Fists clenched, Chloe found herself facing Dr. Fate as she'd once known him. As Kent Nelson, as the man trapped by the very identity he had been asked to hold.

_**You cannot change what has already happened, Chloe Sullivan.**_ The distorting bass tones had once been a promise of salvation. Now, they only meant betrayal.

" _Bullshit!_ " She spat back. "How  _dare_ you bring me back to Metropolis and tell me to stay! You could have told me at  _any time_  to leave!" The words came tumbling out, but she wasn't about to stop them. "You made me  _choose_  between them, and I  _could have saved them!_  I could have been there, I could have helped Dean-"

_**You could have done nothing. This is the path that must be traveled. You are the Chosen GIrl and you must walk this.** _

"I don't even know what that  _means!_ " The world around them grew brighter as Nabu's light banished the darkness around them. But, that didn't change what she'd seen. "Do you have  _any_  idea what you've done? To me? Screw that, to Dean? To  _Sam_? He's dead! He's the only family Dean has left!  _I know what that feels like!_ "

_**This is the path the Winchesters must walk. You have chosen their Fate.** _

"I didn't  _choose_  anything!" She stalked forward, meeting Fate's gaze as best she could. "You  _played_  me! And I need to know  _why!_ "

_**You need to know nothing. The Righteous Man must sign his contract.** _

"Enough riddles!" Chloe shoved at the force in her mind, but he didn't budge. Instead, the moment her hands touched his chest, her body went numb, her knees buckled and she was forced to the ground. "Wh…" Her tongue didn't want to work. Frightened, the instincts the Amazons had imparted with her, the fearlessness that Ted Grant had drilled into her, it all couldn't help her face the fear that had kept her awake night after night: She was losing control. This was her mind, and it was slipping away.

_**You will remain with the Archer until he who barters with the Demons Three finds the Bell. Then you will find the Man Who Calls By the Name of Blood.** _

"No…" The word was sluggish, ungainly, but pressed on. "Not… anymore…"

_**You will do this. For the Darkness comes.** _

"Dean…"

_**Is the rook. And in some matches, the Knight need not be sacrificed. But, you, Chloe Sullivan, must be the pawn.** _

**366:23:59.21**

Blood had been washed from her mouth and her hair had been brushed back into place. Oliver had given up calling her name, but he would probably check on her at any moment if she didn't leave the claustrophobic bathroom. Chloe pulled her phone free and scrolled to her voicemails. With a simple swipe, she deleted the older voicemails from Dean.

When the latch on the bathroom door clicked open, Chloe took a deep breath and stepped back into the main cabin.

"Hey. You okay?" Oliver was immediately up on his feet, wanting to touch her, stroke her cheek, ensure that she wasn't rattled.

The glint of gold finally faded in her eyes as she looked at him blankly. "Of course, I'm fine. I just needed a minute." She smiled, completely at ease. As she made her way back over to the couch and picked her laptop up, the name Cold Oak held no meaning for her. She shut the screen with a little frown, then settled against Oliver's side as he took a seat.

As the jet soared towards Star City, Chloe absently wondered why she hadn't heard from Dean for weeks, then brushed it off.

Maybe he was just busy.

**366:23:59.30**

"You'll bring him back?"

"I will. And because I'm such a saint, I'll give you one year, and one year only." The demon took another sultry step towards the elder Winchester. "But here's the thing. If you try and welch or weasel your way out, then the deal is off. Sam drops dead. He's back to rotten meat in no time. So... It's a better deal than your dad ever got. What do you say?"

Dean pulled the demon close and sealed the deal, his lips crushed against hers.

No going back now.

**365:00:00.00**


End file.
